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HENRY WADS WORTH 
LONGFELLOW. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 



PROCEEDINGS 

OF THE 

Febkuaey 27, 1882. 







PORTLAND: 
HOYT, FOGG AND DONHAM, 



193 Middle Street. 



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Br «A1XI HISTORICAL ScVlXTT, 
AS ri^Us reserved. 






1807 — 1882. 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



Often I think of the beautiful town 

That is seated by the sea; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town, 

And my youth comes back to me. 

My Lost Youth. 

But the poets memory here 

Of the landscape makes a part. 

Oliver Basselin. 



PREFACE, 



The poems, papers, and letters included in this 
^^olume were published in the " Portland Daily 
Advertiser," on the day following the meeting at 
Yhich they were read ; but the edition was at 
mce exhausted. Since Mr. Longfellow's death 
;heir republication has been frequently requested. 
kVorthy tributes have been paid to the poet's 
nemory. It is a pleasing thought to the members 
)f the Maine Historical Society that the proceed- 
ngs of this meeting on Mr. Longfellow's last 
)irthday, in the city in which he was born, came 
mder his own eye, and reawakened thoughts of 
lis " Lost Youth." 

H. S. B. 

Portland, May 18, 1882. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Record of Meeting 9 

Opening Address. Hon. W. G. Barrows, Brunswick 15 
Laus Laureati. James Phinney Baxter, Esq., Port- 
land . 22 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and his Paternal 

Ancestry. Rev. Henry S. Burrage, Portland . 29 
General Peleg Wadsworth, and the Maternal An- 
cestry OF Henry W. Longfellow. Hon. Will- 
iam GooLD, Windham 52 

The Portland of Longfellow's Youth. Edward H. 

Elwell, Esq., Portland 81 

Longfellow as a Student and Professor at Bowdoin 

College. A. S. Packard, D. D., Brunswick . . 99 
The Genius of Longfellow. Hon. George F. Talbot, 

Portland 107 

Letter from Hon. James W. Bradbury . . .126 
Letter and Poem from Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr. . 130 
Tribute from Hon. Joseph Williamson. . . . 133 

IN MEMORIAM. 
Proceedings of the Society at its Spring Meeting, 

May 25, 1882 137 

Address by Rev. Thomas Hill, D. D 157 

Address by Hon. Joseph W. Symonds .... 160 
Address by Rev. Asa Dalton 165 



EECOED OF MEETING. 



At a meeting held in Portland on Monday 
evening, February 27, 1882, the Maine Historical 
Society celebrated the seventy-fifth birthday of 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was the desire 
of the members that Mr. Longfellow himself might 
honor the Society by his presence on that occasion, 
and the President, Hon. J. W. Bradbury, extended 
to him an earnest invitation, to which Mr. Long- 
fellow sent the following reply : — 

Cajibeidge, February 12, 1882. 

Dear Mr. Bradbury, — I am extremely obliged to 
you for your cordial invitation to attend the meeting of 
the Maine Historical Society, on the 27th of this month, 
and greatly regret that I am prevented by illness from 
accepting it. Rest assured that I highly appreciate the 
honor the Society has done me in calling this meeting on 
the anniversary of my birthday, and that I shall always 
hold it in grateful remembrance. Reciprocating your 
good wishes, I am Yours faithfully, 

Henry W. Longfellow. 



10 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

It was intended that the meeting should be held 
in the rooms of the Society, in City Building, and 
the walls had been adorned with portraits of dis- 
tinguished members of the Longfellow and Wads- 
worth families, while in a case had been arranged 
the following articles : — 

Letter of Stephen Longfellow, of Newbury, born 1685, 
the blacksmith and ensign. 

Letter of Stephen 2d, the school-master, son of the 
above. 

Letter of Stephen 3d, the judge, son of the above. 

Letter of Stephen 4th, the statesman, son of the above 
and father of Henry, the poet. 

The original letter of Parson Thomas Smith, inviting 
Stephen, the school-master, to visit Portland. 

Silver tankard and silver porringer, marked " S. L. Ux 
Dono Patris" made in 1770. 

Autograph letter of General Peleg Wadsworth. 

Stereoscopic views of the house built by General Peleg 
Wadsworth in the town of Hiram, Maine, in 1800. 

Silhouette portrait of General Peleg Wadsworth in 
1784. 

Portrait of Stephen Longfellow, the statesman, painted 
by King, in Washington, about the year 1826. 

The 4th of July, 1804, oration, delivered by Long- 
fellow, father of the poet, MS. and print. 

A drawing of the Wads worth-Longfellow House on 
Congress Street, as it stood when completed in 1785, 
then only two stories. 

An autograph poem, entitled " Venice, an Italian 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 11 

Song," one stanza, dated Portland Academy, March 17, 
1820, and signed Henry "W. Longfellow, written at the 
age of thirteen years. 

Early printed books by Longfellow: "Manuel de 
Proverbes Dramatiques," 1832; " Coplas de Don Jorge 
Manrique," 1833 ; " Outre-Mer," 1833. 

The poetical works of Longfellow, two volumes quarto, 
splendidly illustrated and bound, loaned by the publish- 
ers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Sundry autograph poems of Longfellow. 

Portrait of Henry W. Longfellow, painted by Badger, 
in Brunswick, Me., about the year 1830. 

Sketch of the village smithy at Cambridge, 1840, with 
the chestnut-tree. 

Photograph of the chair presented to the poet by the 
children of Cambridge in 1879, made from the wood of 
the chestnut-tree near the village smithy. 

But at an early hour the Library was crowded, 
and it was found necessary to adjourn to Reception 
Hall, which was at once filled, while many who 
sought admission were turned away. Among those 
present were the poet's brother, Alexander Long- 
fellow, and family, of Portland ; his two sisters, 
Mrs. Annie L. Pierce, of Portland, and Mrs. Mary 
L. Greenleaf, of Cambridge, Mass.; and his nephew, 
Mr. William P. P. Longfellow, of Boston. 

In the absence of the President of the Society, 
Hon. J. W. Bradbury, of Augusta, the Vice-Presi- 
dent, Hon. W. G. Barrows, of Brunswick, presided. 



12 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

On a table before him was a bust of Longfellow, 
by Paul Akers ; at his right was a large and beau- 
tiful bouquet, the gift of Mrs. John B. Brown ; on 
the wall in the rear of the Vice-President was sus- 
pended the sword presented to Commodore x\lex- 
ander Samuel "Wadsworth by the citizens of Port- 
land ; on a frame at the left were drawings of the 
old Longfellow and Wadsworth houses. 

Judge Barrows delivered the opening address. 
At the close of the address, on motion of E. H. El- 
well, Esq., of Portland, the following telegram was 
sent to Mr. Longfellow : — 

Portland, February 27, 1882. 

To H. W. Longfellow, Cambridge Mass. : 

The members of the Maine Historical Society, assem- 
bled with friends, in honor of your seventy-fifth birthday, 
send greetings and congratulations. 

H. W. Bryant, Recording Secretary. 

James P. Baxter, Esq., of Portland, then read 

a poem, ^^ Laus Laureati," and near the close, at 

the words, 

" And now, I may 

This wreath from Deering's woods, Master, lay 

Upon thy brow," 

he placed a chaplet of oak leaves upon the bust of 
the poet, amid long-continued applause. 

Rev. Henry S. Burrage, of Portland, followed 
with a paper on " Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
and his Paternal Ancestry." 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 13 

Hon. William Goold, of Windham, read a paper 
on " Gen. Peleg Wadsworth, the Maternal Grand- 
father of Henry W. Longfellow." 

Edward H. El well, Esq., of Portland, read a 
paper on " The Portland of Longfellow's Youth." 

Prof. A. S. Packard, D. D., of Bowdoin College, 
read a paper on " Longfellow as a Student and 
Professor at Bowdoin College." 

Hon. George F. Talbot, of Portland, read a paper 
on " The Genius of Long^fellow." 

At the close of the reading of these papers, 
the following telegram from Mr. Longfellow was 
read : — 

Cambridge, February 27, 1882. 

To H. W. Bryant, Recording Secretary of Maine His- 
torical Society, Portland, Me. : 
Your telegram received. I return cordial thanks to 
the members of the Society, and am grateful for this 
signal mark of their remembrance and regard. 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

The Secretary announced letters from Hon. J. 
W. Bradbury and Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr., but 
their readins; was omitted on account of the late- 
ness of the hour. They will be found at the close 
of the papers : also a tribute to Mr. Longfellow, 
by Hon. Joseph Williamson, of Belfast, which was 
received too late for the meeting. 

It is proper to add in this connection that in 



14 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

the city, during the clay, flags and other decora- 
tions were displayed on the pubhc buildings ; on 
the house at the corner of Fore and Hancock 
streets in which Mr. Longfellow was born ; and 
on many private residences ; while the English 
steamers in port, in their holiday dress, bore beau- 
tiful testimony to the fact that in England as well 
as in America the poems of Longfellow have en- 
deared him to the hearts of the people. 



OPENING ADDRESS. 

by iiox. w. g. barrows, brunswick. 

Brethren of the Historical Society, Ladies and 
Gentle.^ien : 

I bespeak your kind indulgence for my inex- 
perience, and your prompt and zealous coopera- 
tion, in undertaking the performance of my duties 
on this occasion. To the members of the Society 
it is well known that the punctual attendance of 
our President has made the Vice-Presidency prac- 
tically a sinecure, and this, with my own enforced 
absence at most of the extraordinary meetings of 
the society, must be my apology for my deficien- 
cies now, which I look to your kindness to supply. 

I feel that it would not be quite proper for me 
to direct the crier to proclaim that all who have 
anything to do here to-night may draw near and 
give their attendance, and they shall be heard, and 
then quietly await the result : but I have an im- 
pression that, in presiding at such a gathering, 
the best form is the nearest possible approach to 
a want of form, or at least of formality, and I have 
no fear that in this assembly the divine law of 



16 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

order would be greatly infringed even if the cliair 
were altogether vacant. 

But I believe it to be a part of my pleasant 
duty to state the object of our meeting. 

The first notice of it which I saw in the news- 
papers spoke of it, if I remember rightly, as a 
meeting to do honor to the poet Longfellow on the 
occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday. Perhaps it 
would be more accurate to say that it is a meet- 
ing to testify our sense of the honor he has done 
to this, his birthplace. It is very little we can do 
to honor him whose own works have long ago 
crowned him a king in the hearts of men, to bear 
sway wherever and so long as the English lan- 
guage is spoken or understood. 

We meet to claim for this good city the honor 
which from time immemorial has always been con- 
ceded to the birthplaces of poets and seers, — to 
do our part to link the name of " the dear old 
town " with his, as he has linked it in the loving 
description which he has given in the idyl of 
"My Lost Youth." 

For a more potent reason than the chiseled in- 
scription on the ancient mill which links the name 
of Oliver Basselin with the Valley of the Vire, in 
all coming time, "shall the poet's memory here 
of the landscape make a part," because we know 
that the lyrics of our poet are indeed 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 17 

" SoiiiTs of that liiiili art 
Which, as winds do in the pine, 
Find an answer in each heart," 

and we meet to bear witness to this. 

More than this, we meet to testify our sense of 
personal obhgation to him, not merely for the ex- 
quisite pleasure afforded by the wonderful melody 
of his verse, but for the didactic force that has im- 
pressed it on us that 

*' All common things, each day's events, 
That with the hour begin and end, 
Our pleasures and our discontents. 

Are rounds by which we may ascend." 

It is no mere gospel of idle contentment with 
pleasant trifles that he has preached to us. Even 
the dullest of us could not read him without beino; 
moved at least to strive to place ourselves on a 
higher plane, — Excelsior. In ancient days poet 
and seer were convertible terms, and the best of 
our modern poets are prophets also. 

What insight was it which made him, in Jan- 
uary, 1861, rouse us with 

" Listen, my children, and you shall hear 
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere," 

when all unconsciously we stood so near another 
and bloodier Lexing;ton ? 

Philanthropy of the purest, patriotism of the 
most exalted kind, have by turns inspired him ; 



18 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

and whether he sang of the " Slave's Dream," or 
the " Warning " drawn from the 

" Poor, blind Samson in this land, 
Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel," 

or of the Cumberland, sunk in Hampton Roads, 
or of the beautiful youth slain at the ford, the 
lesson was timely, and it told the story well of 
the heroism and endurance which carried this 
nation through its last great struggle triumphant. 
We meet to pass an hour in expressing our ad- 
miration for the bard, the scholar, and the patriot, 
whose every utterance from his youth up has 
been pure and noble, and has tended to raise this 
nation in the scale of humanity. I am proud to 
say that when he lived with us he was an active 
member of this Society, and the ri|)e and golden 
fruits of his historical studies we have in the story 
of Priscilla, the Puritan Maiden ; in the pen- 
sive loveliness of "Evangeline," that tale of the 
" strength, submission, and patience " of the Aca- 
dian refugees ; in the musical song of " Hiawa- 
tha; " and in many another gem evoked from the 
Chronicles of the Past and set* in tuneful verse. 
But, after all, it seems to me that that which 
brings him nearer to our hearts, and has more to 
do with bringing us together here to-night, than 
his wide-spread renown, or the fame that attaches 
to his more stately and elaborate poems, is the 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 19 

lis^ht which he has thrown around home and 
hearth and heart in some of those hghter but un- 
equaled lyrics, which from time to time have 
" gone through us with a thrill," which are 
haunting our memories still, and which are and 
will always be dear to us because dear to those 
whom we love. Who of us can think of home, 
now, and all that we hold dear in it, without some- 
how associatino; with it and them reminiscences of 
"The Footsteps of Angels," "The Golden Mile- 
Stone," " The Old Clock on the Stairs," " The 
Children's Hour," "The Fire of Drift-Wood," 
" The Wind over the Chimney," and " Daybreak," 
and "Twilight," and " Curfew," and the "Psalm," 
and the " Goblet of Life," and " The Reaper and 
the Flowers " ? And where can I stop, having 
begun to enumerate ? 

For nearly thirty years I have occupied the 
house he lived in when in Brunswick, — an old 
house whose first proprietors have long since 
passed away ; and I sometimes wonder whether it 
is, in his thought, one of the " Haunted Houses," 
through whose 

" Open doors 
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, 
AVith feet that make no sound upon the floors." 

Since the wonderful legend of " Sandalphon " 
first made a lodgment in my memory, more than 



20 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

a score of years ago, I cannot number the times I 
have been called upon to repeat it in the stillness 
of the evening hour and in the weary night 
watches, because its melodious numbers had in 
them a spell "to quiet the fever and pain " of one 
who has now for years breathed the fragrance that 
is " wafted through the streets of the city immor- 
tal." And hence it is that " the legend I feel is 
a part of the hunger and thirst of the heart," and 
my warmest gratitude goes forth to him who min- 
istered comfort to the invalid in the sweet strains 
that breathe unwavering faith and trust in the 
good All-Father. Hence I say that we meet here 
to express not simply our admiration of the poet, 
our sense of obligation to the teacher, the patriot, 
and the philanthropist, but also our reverent affec- 
tion for the man who has done so much to brighten 
and cheer not only our own lives, but the lives of 
those we love, in sickness and in health. 

Not he the poet of despair, or morbid melan- 
choly, or depressing doubt, misbegotten by the 
wild self-conceit which assumes that the finite 
human intellect is capable of penetrating all mys- 
teries because it has mastered some, and madly 
argues that it is a proof of superior wisdom to re- 
ject everything it cannot understand. Not so he, 
but the poet of a broad Christian faith and an 
unfading hope that " what we know not now we 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 21 

shall know hereafter," if we strive in earnest to 
rise above " that which is of the earth earthy." 

I think his motto in all his productions must 
have been, " JSfec satis est pulchra esse poemata — 
dulcia suntoy 

" 'T is not enough a poem 's finely writ ; 
It must affect and captivate the soul." 

If success can be predicated of any mortal life, 
surely his has been a success. 

Tldcnv yap cvcfypovovaL avfxfia)^ei TV)(r}. 

The Maine Historical Society and their guests, 
assembled at his birthplace to celebrate the birth- 
day of their former member, the renowned poet 
Longfellow, send him their fervent and united 
wishes for his health and happiness. 



LAUS LAUREATI. 

BY JAMES PHINNEY BAXTER, PORTLAND. 

I SING no common theme, but of a man, — 
One wlio, full-voiced, tlie highway of the King 
Gladdens with song ; inspiring lives which span 
A fruitless field where little joy may spring, 
And which, from birth, may win no better thing 
Than paltry bread, and shelter from the blast, 
Till unto death's low house they come at last. 

It needs more fluent tongue than mine to sing 

In fitting measure of a poet born, — 

Greater than crosiered priest or sceptred king, . 

Since such are made, and may by chance be shorn 

Of all their glory by to-morrow morn ; 

But born a poet, he shall surely be 

Ever a poet to eternity. 

Of such I strive to sing : one who shall live 

In Fame's high house while stars make glad the sky,- 

That happy house which many hapless give 

Life's choicest pearls to gain, since none may die 

Who come within its halls so fair and high. 

Would I might win it, with no thought but this. 

That I might others bring soul-health and bliss. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 23 

But, Master, one who is about to die 

Brings thee a crown, which, though nOt one of bay. 

May haply mind thee of some things gone by 

Pleasant to think of — matters put away 

In rooms forgot, where truant memories play 

At hide and seek ; for beareth it, forsooth, 

Savor of things well loved by thee in youth. 

Of Deering's Woods, which whisper softly still, 

A boy's will is the wind's will, as of yore 

They lisped to thee, where sweet-voiced birds would trill, 

In haunts wherein thou soughtest tuneful lore ; 

Of bluff and beach along our rugged shore 

Girting the bay, whose isles enchanted drew 

Thy venturous thoughts to havens ever new. 

Dear Master, let me take thy hand a space 
And lead thee gently wheresoe'er I may ; 
With the salt sea's cool breath upon thy face, 
And in thine ears the music of the spray, 
Which rapt in days agone thy soul away. 
Where hung full low the golden fruit of truth, 
Within the reach of thy aspiring youth. 

Thou knowest well the place : here built George Cleeves 
Almost two centuries before thy birth ; 
Here was his corn-field ; here his lowly eaves 
Sheltered the swallows, and around his hearth 
The red-men crouched — poor souls of little worth : 
Thou with clear vision seest them, I know, 
As they were in the flesh long years ago. 



24 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Surely the shrewd, persistent pioneer 

Built better tlian he knew : he thought to build 

A shelter for himself, his kith and gear ; 

But felled the trees, and grubbed and plowed and tilled, 

That in the course of time might be fulfilled 

A wondrous purpose, being no less than this, 

That here a poet might be born to bliss. 

Ah ! could he but have tracked adown the dim, 
Long, weary path of years, and stood to-day 
With thee and me, how would the eyes of him 
Have flashed with pride and joy to hear men say, 
Here Cleeves built the first house in Casco Bay ! 
Here, too, was our loved laureate's place of birth, 
And sooth, God sent his singers upon earth. 

Thou canst not find Clay Cove ? ' T was here, wilt say, 

When thou didst listen to the runnet's song, 

Leaping to meet the full lips of the bay. 

Well, let us climb Munjoy ; lo ! good and strong, 

In the same coat of red it hath so long 

Disported bravely, spite of flood and flame, 

The old Observatory, still the same. 

And there the forts, and farther seaward yet, 
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day. 
The light-house standeth still, as firmly set 
Upon its flinty throne amidst the spray 
As erst when thou didst dream thy soul away 
To the hoarse Hebrides, or bright Azore, 
Or flashing surges of San Salvador. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 25 

And, ere we leave, look where still sleep the two 
Brave captains, who in bloody shrouds were brought 
From the great sea-fight, whilst the bugles blew. 
And drums rolled, and gaunt cannon terror wrought 
In childish hearts ; the place thou oft has sought 
To dream the fight o'er, while the busy hum 
Of toil from wharf and street would strangely come. 

But now along the teeming thoroughfare 
Thread we our way. Strange faces, sayest thou ? 
Yet names well known to thee some haply bear. 
And shouldst thou scan more closely face and brow, 
Old looks would come well known to thee enow, 
Which shone on faces of the girls and boys 
Who shared with thee the sweets of youthful joys. 

And now we come where, rough with rent and scar, 
The ancient rope-walk stood, low roofed and gray. 
Embalmed with scent of oakum, flax, and tar, 
Cobwebbed and dim, and crammed with strange array 
Of things which lure the thoughts of j^outh away 
To wondrous climes, where never ship hath been, 
Nor foot hath trod, nor curious eye hath seen. 

Gone? Why, I dreamt ! A moment since 'twas there, 
Or seemed to be. Their lives' frail thread, 't is true, 
The spinners long since spun ; the maidens fair, 
Swinging and laughing as their shadows flew 
Along the grass, have swung from earthly view. 
And the gay mountebanks have vaulted quite 
Into oblivion's eternal night. 



26 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

And they are gone : the woman at the well ; 
The old man rhiging in the noontide heat ; 
The shameless convicts with their faces fell ; 
The boy and kite, and steeds with flying feet, 
And sportsmen ambushed midst of leafage sweet ; 
Aye, and the ships rejoicing in the breeze 
Are rutting on the shores of unknown seas. 

But, Master, let us fare to old Bramhall, 

Up Free and Main streets — this is State ; full well 

The house where Mellen lived thou must recall, 

Seeing a poet once therein might dwell; 

Though short of Fame's fair house he hapless fell, 

Tracing his name half listless, in the reach 

Of every tide which sweeps Time's treacherous beach. 

And here is cool Bramhall, and there still stands 
The Deering house, as thou hast known it long ; 
Where Bracket's house stood, ere with murderous hands 
The Indians thronged around it — witched of wrong — 
One August day, with torch and savage song, 
And swept it from the earth. Ah ! little hope 
Beamed then within poor Falmouth's horoscope. 

But time hath made all right now. See, where rest 
The eternal hills, wliich once, with fervid eyes. 
The Indian saw within the havening west. 
And called the crystal mountains, poetwise, — 
Dreaming that thitherward lay Paradise ; 
Whither each evening went the chief of da}^ 
Bedecked with painted robes and feathers gay. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 27 

'T was not so far amiss, for type more grand 

Of the celestial hills no eye hath seen : 

Towering in splendid majesty they stand, 

Like portals heaven's immortal courts to screen, — 

Curtained with buoyant clouds of purest sheen, 

Which rise and fall, yet evQr seem to hold 

A mystery bosomed in each shadowy fold. 

Pile upon pile they rise and meet the sky, 

Blue, over-arching, like a mighty dome. 

Even such a temple doth my spirit's eye 

Limn for those souls who through achievement come 

To well- won fame. Lo ! in this glorious home 

I see them sit august, and, crowned with bays. 

Across the silent centuries calmly gaze. 

Homer unkempt, with close, sagacious look ; 
Plato, in whose calm face pale mysteries bide ; 
Virgil, smooth-cheeked with oaten pipe and crook ; 
Grave Sophocles, with eyes unsatisfied, 
Where riddles all unread in ambush hide ; 
Keen-eyed Euripides, whose books were men, 
And jovial Horace with satiric pen. 

And dear old Chaucer, loved of gods and men. 
Benign, keen-witted, child-like, quaint, and wise ; 
Spenser, pure knight, whose lance was his good pen, 
The praise of ladj'^es fayre his loved emprise ; 
Great Shakespeare, with a seer's unhindered eyes ; 
Blind Milton, listening for a seraph's wings ; 
And Burns, in whose blithe face a sky-lark sings ; 



28 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Wordsworth, so simple ; and poor fragile Keats, 

Who poured his heart out like a nightingale, 

Whose affluent verse half cloys with wealth of sweets, 

A master, spite of faulty work and frail. 

Whose luckless loss the world full long shall wail ; 

And here, placed fairly in this hall of Fame, 

A glorious seat with newly-carven name. 

'T is plain, dear Master, 't is thy name, forsooth, 

Deep graven in the everlasting stone. 

There shall it be untouched of Time's sharp tooth, 

While sunshine kisses bud to bloom. And zone 

Answers to zone with fruitage all its own ; 

And quiring stars, with universal song, 

The boundless arch of heaven majestic throng. 

Here will I bid thee. Master, fond good-by, 
Wishing thee soul-health and full many a day 
Of blissful living, ere thou mayest try 
The scope of other joys. And now, I may 
This wreath from Deering's Woods, O Master, lay 
Upon thy brow. God speed thee while the sun 
Shines on the faithful work which thou hast done. 



HENRY W. LONGFELLOW AND HIS PATER- 
NAL ANCESTRY. 

BY REV. HENRY S. BURRAGE, PORTLAND. 

In Parson Smith's " Journal," the source of so 
much of what we know concerning the early his- 
tory of Portland, occurs this entry under date of 
April 11, 1745 : " Mr. Longfellow came here to 
live." This was Stephen Longfellow, the great- 
grandfather of the poet, Henry Wadsworth Long- 
fellow, who w\as born in Portland, February 27, 
1807, and in honor of whose seventy-fifth birth- 
day we are now assembled. 

Stephen Longfellow was a native of Newbury, 
Mass. His grandfather, William Longfellow, was 
born in Yorkshire County, England, about the 
year 1651. In early life he came to Newbury, 
where, November 10, 1678, he was married to 
Anne, daughter of Henry Sewall (who began the 
settlement of Newbury), and a sister of Samuel 
Sewall, afterwards Chief Justice of the Province 
of Massachusetts Bay, and Judge of Probate for 
Suffolk County. Concerning his occupation, we 
only know that he was a merchant, and resided in 



30 HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 

that part of the town then known as the " Falls." 
In 1690, as Ensign of the Newbury company, he 
had a part in the ill-fated expedition to Quebec, 
under Sir William Phips. Earlier in the year 
Sir William had captured the French stronghold, 
Port Royal. It was now his purpose to strike a 
more decisive blow at the French power in North 
America. A larger command was given to him. 
With a fleet consisting of thirty-two vessels, hav- 
ing on board 2,200 soldiers, he sailed from Boston 
Harbor, August 9th. His progress was slow, and 
it was not until October 5th that he appeared be- 
fore Quebec. The attempt to capture the place 
failed, and the expedition was abandoned. On 
the return a violent storm overtook the fleet in 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, scattered the vessels, 
and one of them, containing the Newbury com- 
j)any, went ashore at Anticosti, a desolate island, 
and William Longfellow, with nine others, was 
drowned. This was on the nio-ht of the 31st of 
October. The sad tidino-s at leng-th reached New- 
bury. Under date of November 21st, Judge Sew- 
all made this entry in his diary : — 

" 'T was Tuesday, the 18tb of November, that I heard 
of the death of Capt. Stephen Greenleaf, Lieut. James 
Smith, and Ensign WilHara Longfellow, Sergeant In- 
crease Pilsbury, who, with Will Mitchell, Jabez Musgro, 
and four more, were drowned at Cape Britoon [an error] 
on Friday night, the last of October." 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 31 

Of \Yilliam Longfellow's six children, one, 
named Stephen Longfellow (for StejDhen Diimmer, 
Mrs. Longfellow's grandfather), had died in early 
childhood, and to another son, born September 22, 
1685, the same name was given. This w^as the 
father of Stephen Longfellow, who came to Port- 
land in 1745. Concerning his quiet, uneventful 
life we know but little. He became a blacksmith, 
and we may picture him, like the poet's hero of 
the village smithy, with large and sinewy hands, 
brawny arms, his brow wet with honest sweat, as 
he swings his heavy sledge " with measured beat 
and slow." 

Stephen Longfellow, the blacksmith, married, 
March 25, 1714, Abigail Tompson, daughter of 
Eev. Edward Tompson, of Marshfield, by whom 
he had ten children. In his son Stephen, born 
February 7, 1723, he seems early to have discov- 
ered signs of intellectual promise, and he sent him 
to Harvard College, where he was graduated in 
1742. The father was permitted to follow the 
honorable career of his son for nineteen years 
after he came to Portland ; and wdien he died, 
November 7, 1764, he left him a small legacy. It 
is an evidence of the son's affectionate regard for 
his father that, on receiving this legacy, he formed 
the purpose of converting it into a permanent 
memorial. Taking the silver coin, he sent it by 



32 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

packet to Boston ; but unfortunately the vessel 
was lost, and the money with it. When the ti- 
dings reached Mr. Longfellow, he made up a like 
amount of silver coin, which reached Boston in 
safety, and was manufactured by John Butler, a 
well-known silversmith, into a tankard, a can, and 
two porringers. Each bore the initials S. L., and 
the added words of grateful remembrance, Ex Dono 
Patris. The tankard has been preserved ; and 
one of the porringers, after a somewhat eventful 
history, has found its way back into the family, 
and is one of the treasures of the poet's brother, 
Alexander W. Longfellow. 

Before taking up his residence in Portland, 
Stephen Longfellow had been keeping school in 
York. He came to Portland on the following let- 
ter of invitation from Parson Smith : — 

Falmouth, November 15, 1744. 

Sir, — We need a school-master. Mr. Plaisted advises 
of your being at liberty. If you will undertake the serv- 
ice in this place, you m.ay depend upon our being gener- 
ous, and your being satisfied. I wish you 'd come as 
soon as possible, and doubt not but you '11 find things 
much to your content. Your humble ser't, 

Thos. Smith. 

P. S. I write in the name and with the power of the 
selectmen of the town. If you can't serve us, pray ad- 
vise us of it per first opportunity. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 33 

The invitation was favorably considered, and in 
April following, as Parson Smith records, Mr. 
Longfellow came here to enter upon his work. 
An appropriation of fifty pounds had been voted 
by the town toward the salary of a grammar 
teacher ; and the people on the Neck, as Portland 
was then called, were to have his exclusive serv- 
ices, provided they contributed the remainder of 
his salary. Mr. Longfellow opened his school 
April 17, 1745, in a building on the corner of 
Middle Street and School, now Pearl Street. The 
number of scholars is not known. In the follow- 
ing year it was fifty, and on the list which has 
been preserved occur the names of the prominent 
families of tliat day, — Smith, Moody, Brackett, 
Waite, Bradbury, Jones, Cox, Gooding, Freeman, 
Bryant, Coffin, Stickney, Proctor, and Motley. For 
that year his salary was two hundred pounds. As 
the currency then w^as at a depreciation of seven 
to one, it will be seen that the office was not a 
very remunerative one even with the tuition, 
wdiich for each scholar was eig-hteen shillinirs and 
eight pence per year, and eight shillings per 
quarter. 

In a manuscript note, in his copy of Smith's 
'•Journal," now in the Public Library, Mr. Willis 
says, " I think Mr. Longfellow boarded with Mr. 
Smith when he came here until his marriaire." 

o 



34 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

This occurred October 19, 1749. His wife was 
Tabitha Bragdon, a daughter of Samuel Bragdon, 
of York. After he built his house on Fore Street, 
on the lot now occupied by the Eagle Sugar Re- 
finery, he transferred his school thither, and he 
continued to be the principal instructor in the 
town until 1760, when he was appointed Clerk of 
the Judicial Court. When Mowatt destroyed the 
town, October 18, 1775, Mr. Longfellow's house 
was burned. The committee appointed to examine 
and liquidate the accounts of those who suffered 
in the burning of the town estimated his loss at 
£1,119. The house was not rebuilt, and the old 
cellar was visible on the unoccupied lot until the 
erection of the brick building by the Sugar Re- 
finery, a quarter of a century ago. 

After the destruction of his house, Mr. Longfel- 
low removed to Gorham, where he resided until 
his death, May 1, 1790. In a brief sketch of his 
life Mr. Willis says, " Mr. Longfellow filled many 
important offices in the town to universal accept- 
ance. He was about fifteen years grammar-school 
master ; parish clerk tw^enty-three years ; town 
clerk twenty-two years ; many years clerk of the 
proprietors of the common land ; and from the 
establishment of the county, in 1760, to the com- 
mencement of the Revolution, in 1775, he was 
Resxister of Probate and Clerk of the Judicial 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 35 

Courts. His handwriting, in beautiful characters, 
symbolical of the purity and excellence of his own 
moral character, is impressed on all the records of 
the town and county through many successive 
years." 

Of his three sons, Stephen, Samuel, and William, 
the latter died in early life, while Samuel left no 
children. Stephen, the oldest son, was born Au- 
gust 3, 1750. December 13, 1773, he married 
Patience Young, of York. His home was in Gor- 
ham, and there he died, greatly respected, May 
28, 1824. He was extensively employed as a 
surveyor, and received appointments to various 
town offices. He represented Gorham in the 
General Court of Massachusetts eight years. For 
several years he was Senator from Cumberland 
County. He was Judge of the Court of Common 
Pleas from 1797 to 1811, and there are those still 
among us who remember him as he drove into 
Portland in an old square-top chaise, and, dis- 
mounting, made his way into the Court House 
escorted by the sheriff. He was a fine-looking 
gentleman, with the bearing of the old school, was 
erect, portly, rather taller than the average, had 
a strongly marked face, and his hair was tied be- 
hind in a club with black ribbon. To the close of 
his life he wore the old-style dress — knee-breeches, 
a long waistcoat, and white top boots. He was a 



36 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

man of sterling qualities of mind and heart, great 
integrity, and sound common sense. 

Stephen, his second child, born in Gorham 
March 23, 1776, was the father of Henry Wads- 
worth Longfellow. He entered Harvard College 
in 1794. A college friend, Daniel Appleton White, 
two years his senior, said of him in later life, 
" He was evidently a well-bred gentleman when 
he left the paternal mansion for the University. 
He seemed to breathe an atmosphere of purity, as 
his natural element, while his bright intelligence, 
buoyant spirits, and social warmth diffused a sun- 
shine of joy that made his presence always glad- 
some." That he was a favorite in his class is the 
testimony of his associates. But he went to col- 
lege for other purposes than good fellowship. He 
was an earnest, exemplary student. His scholar- 
ship entitled him to high rank, and having com- 
pleted the course he left the University with a full 
share of its honors. 

After his graduation, in 1798, Mr. Longfellow 
entered the law office of Salmon Chase, an uncle 
of Salmon Portland Chase, late Chief Justice of 
the United States ; and he was admitted to the 
bar in 1801. He at once entered upon an exten- 
sive and lucrative practice. Three years later, 
January 1, 1804, he married Zilpah, eldest daugh- 
ter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who built and 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 37 

then occupied the brick house which is still stand- 
ing on Congress Street, adjoining the Preble House, 
and is known as the Longfellow House. In the 
same year he was selected by the citizens of the 
town to deliver an oration on the Fourth of July. 
After his marriage Mr. Longfellow lived a year 
in the Wadsworth House. During the next year 
his home was in a small house on the corner of 
Temple Street, opposite the First Parish Church. 
Samuel Stephenson, a rich merchant of Portland, 
then lived in the large square wooden house which 
is still standing at the corner of Fore and Hancock 
streets. His wife, Abigail Longfellow, was a sister 
of Stephen Longfellow, the lawyer, and as her 
husband had been suddenly called to the West 
Indies, on business, she invited her brother with 
his family to spend the winter of 1806-7 with her. 
Thus it was that on the 27th of February, 1807, 
in this house, — which should be known as the 
Stephenson and not the Longfellow House, — and 
during this temporary residence, was born their 
second son, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, named 
for Mrs. Longfellow's brother. Lieutenant Henry 
Wadsworth of the U. S. Navy, who on the night 
of September 4, 1804, in the harbor of Tripoh, lost 
his life, a voluntary sacrifice, in a gallant endeavor 
to destroy the enemy's flotilla by a fire-ship. In 
the spring of 1807, General Wadsworth, Mrs. Long- 



38 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

fellow's father, having removed to Hiram in order 
to occupy and improve a large tract of land which 
he had bought, Stephen Longfellow took up his 
residence in the brick house which General Wads- 
worth had vacated, and made it henceforth his 
home. 

In 1814 he was sent to the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts, and while engaged in this service he was 
chosen a member of the celebrated Hartford Con- 
vention. In 1816 he Avas made a presidential 
elector. In 1822 he was elected a member of the 
18th Cono;ress. At the close of his con^-ressional 
term he retired from political life, and devoted his 
remaining years to his profession. In 1825, when 
Lafayette visited Portland, Mr. Longfellow was 
appointed to give the address of welcome. The 
service was fittingly performed. In his reply La- 
fayette made this graceful allusion to Mr. Long- 
fellow : " While I offer to the people of Portland, 
and to you, gentlemen, my respectful thanks, I 
am happy to recognize in the kind organ of their 
kindness to me the member of Congress who 
shared in the flattering invitation which has been 
to me a source of inexpressible honor and delight." 
In 1828 Mr. Longfellow received the degree of 
LL. D. from Bowdoin College, of which he was a 
Trustee from 1817 to 1836. He was Recording 
Secretary of the Maine Historical Society from 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 39 

1828 to 1830, and in 1834 he was elected Presi- 
dent of the Society. He died August 3, 1849, 
aged seventy-four years. In his " Law, Courts, 
and Lawyers of Maine," Mr. WiUis says of him, 
" No man more surely gained the confidence of all 
who approached him, or held it firmer ; and those 
who knew him best loved him most. In the man- 
agement of his causes, he went with zeal and 
directness of purpose to every point which could 
sustain it ; there was no traveling out of the rec- 
ord with him, nor a wandering away from the line 
of his argument after figures of speech or fine 
rhetoric, but he was plain, straightforward, and 
effective in his appeals to the jury, and by his 
frank and cordial manner won them to his cause." 

Such, in public life, was the father of Henry 
Wadsworth Longfellow. In the domestic circle 
the noble traits of his character were no less ap- 
parent. His home was one of refinement and the 
purest social virtues ; and she who shared its direc- 
tion with him not only adorned it with rare wom- 
anly grace, but gave to it many an added charm. 

Here the poet passed his earlier years. How 
well he remembers the Portland of those years he 
has told us in his delightful poem, " My Lost 
Youth : "— 

I remember the black wharves and the slips, 
And the sea-tides tossing free ; 



40 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 

And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and saying still : 
"A boy's will is the wind's will, 

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 

And the fort upon the hill ; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er, 

And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 

Throbs in my memory still : 

" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the sea-fight far away. 

How it thundered o'er the tide ! 

And the dead captains, as they lay 

In their graves, o'er-looking the tranquil bay, 
Where they in battle died. 

And the sound of that mournful song 
Goes through me with a thrill : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I can see the breezy dome of groves. 

The shadows of Deering's Woods : 
And the friendships old and the early loves 
Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves 
In quiet neighborhoods. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 41 

And the verse of that sweet old song, 

It flutters and murmurs still : 

"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the tlioughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart 

Across the school-boy's brain ; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 

Are longings wild and vain. 
And the voice of that fitful song 

Sings on, and is never still : 

" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

The first school that Mr. Longfellow attended 
was kept by Marm Fellows in a small brick school- 
house on Spring Street, above High, and just be- 
low the house in which Dr. Bacon now lives. Later 
he went to the town school in Love Lane, now 
Centre Street, where Judge Goddard's house 
stands. Here, however, he remained only a week 
or two, and he was then placed in the private 
school of Nathaniel H. Carter, wdiicli w^as kept in 
a little one-story wooden house on the west side 
of Preble Street, near Congress. Afterwards he 
attended the Portland Academy under the same 
master, and also under the mastership of Mr. 
Bezaleel Cushman, a graduate of Dartmouth Col- 
lege, who took charge of the school in 1815, and 
continued in the position twenty-six years. One 



42 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

of his assistants, while Mr. Longfellow was con- 
nected with the school, was Jacob Abbott. Under 
such inspiring teachers his progress was rapid, 
and in 1821, at the age of fourteen, he entered 
Bowdoin College, though, for the most part, dur- 
ing the first year of his college course, he pursued 
his studies at home. 

The class which he entered was a brilliant one. 
In it were sons of some of the choicest families 
in Northern New England; and among them 
were those who were to achieve a vride reputation 
in the field of letters, — Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
George B. Cheever, John S. C. Abbott, — and 
others at the bar and in political life, conspicuously 
the lamented Cilley, and our honored President, 
Hon. J. W. Bradbury, whose absence to-night we 
all so greatly regret. One of his classmates, the 
Ilev. Daniel Shepley, D. D., referring to Longfellow 
as a student, says, "He gave diligent heed to all 
departments of study in the prescribed course, and 
excelled in all, while his enthusiasm moved in the 
direction it has taken in subsequent life. His 
themes, felicitous translations of Horace and occa- 
sional contributions to the press, drew marked at- 
tention to him, and led to the expectation that his 
would be an honorable literary career." 

When he entered college, Mr. Longfellow had 
already occupied the poet's corner in the Portland 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 43 

newspapers. His first published poem was on 
Lovell's Fight. In his complete poetical works as 
now issued are several poems, which, Mr. Long- 
fellow tells us, were written for the most part dur- 
ing his college life, and all of them before he was 
nineteen years of age. They were first published 
in "The United States Literary Gazette," edited 
by James G. Carter, and thence found their way 
into the columns of the daily and weekly papers 
of the country. 

Mr. Longfellow graduated second in a class of 
thirty- seven. His theme Commencement Day 
was " Native Writers." So full Avas his future of 
promise that when, shortly after he graduated, it 
was proposed to establish a chair of Modern Lan- 
guages in Bowdoin College, he was elected to the 
professorship, being then only nineteen j-ears of 
age. But he was not asked to take the position 
before he had qualified himself for its duties. He 
accordingly went abroad, and the next three years 
and a half were spent in the study of the more 
important languages of Europe on their native 
soil. These were years of earnest, faithful toil, 
and when he returned to Brunswick, in 1829, he 
brouo-ht with him the rich treasures he had made 
his own during his residence in France, Spain, It- 
aly, Germany, Holland, and England. His reputa- 
tion as an instructor was soon established. Presi- 



44 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

dent Hamlin, of Middlebury College, who entered 
Bowdoin in 1830, says, " Longfellow had occu- 
pied the chair but one year. Our class numbered 
fifty-two, the largest Freshman class that had, 
up to that time, entered college, and many of 
its members were attracted by Longfellow's rep- 
utation." 

In September, 1831, Mr. Longfellow was mar- 
ried to Mary S. Potter, daughter of Judge Barrett 
Potter, of Portland. His first published poetical 
work, which appeared in 1833, was a translation 
of the " Coplas de Jorge Mauri que," to which was 
prefixed an Introductory Essay on the Moral and 
Devotional Poetry of Spain. In the same year he 
published the first two numbers of " Outre-Mer," 
and the whole work appeared two years later. 

During his residence at Brunswick, Mr. Long- 
fellow became a member of the Maine Historical 
Society, a fact which we recall to-night with es- 
pecial interest; and in 1834 he held the office of 
Librarian and Cabinet Keeper. 

At this time, Mr. George Ticknor, the learned 
professor of modern languages in Harvard Univer- 
sity, resigned, and the publication of " Outre- 
Mer" and Mr. Longfellow's rapidly growing repu- 
tation as a poet led to his appointment as Mr. 
Ticknor's successor. Before entering upon his 
professorship at Cambridge, in order to study the 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 45 

languages of Northern Europe, he agam visited 
the Old World. The summer was spent in Norway 
and Sweden, and the autumn and winter in Hol- 
land and Germany. But his studies were arrested 
by the sudden death of his wife, at Rotterdam, 
November 29, 1835, and in the shadow of this 
sorrow he was compelled to complete his work 
abroad. In November, 1836, he returned to the 
United States, and, after a visit to the home of 
his childhood, he repaired to Cambridge, and en- 
tered upon his duties as " Smith Professor of 
Modern Literature." 

Early in his Cambridge life Mr. Longfellow 
called one day at the Craigie House, which for a 
time during the Revolution was Washington's 
headquarters, and at a later date the residence 
of Edward Everett and Jared Sparks. " I lodge 
students no longer," said Mrs. Craigie, in answer 
to the inquiry if she had a vacant room for a 
lodger. On learning that Mr. Longfellow was not 
a student, but a professor in the University, she 
led the way to the room in the southeast corner 
on the second floor, once General Washington's 
chamber, and placed it at his disposal. In 1843, 
on the death of Mrs. Crais-ie, Lonorfellow bouo;ht 
the house, and it has since been his home. In 
this year he was married to Frances Elizabeth 
Appleton, daughter of Hon. Nathan Appleton, of 



46 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Boston. In this historic dwellino; Mr. Lono-fel- 
low's children, two sons and four daughters, Avere 
born ; and here, too, occurred the sudden and sor- 
rowful death of his wife, an affliction most keenly 
felt, and which has chastened all his subsequent 
years. 

In the University, as one of his pupils, the Rev. 
Edward Everett Hale, tells us, " his regular duty 
was the oversight of five or more instructors who 
were teaching French, German, Italian, Spanish, 
Portuguese, to two or three hundred under-gradu- 
ates. . . . We never knew when he mio-ht look 
in on a recitation and virtually conduct it. "We 
were delighted to have him come. Any slipshod 
work of some poor wretch from France, who was 
tormented by wild-cat Sophomores, would be made 
straight and decorous and all right. We all knew 
he was a poet, and were proud to have him in the 
college, but at the same time we resjDCcted him as 
a man of affairs." 

Indeed, not a little of his time must have been 
given to literary work. His study, as now, was 
on the lower floor, under the southeast chamber 
which he occupied when he first made his home 
in the Craigie Mansion. It was the room in which 
Washington transacted the business of his office as 
Commander-in-Chief, a fact which the j)oet him- 
self has recorded in the lines, — 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 47 

" Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom, 

Weary both in heart and head." 

Dr. Lyman Abbott, in a description of Mr. 
Longfellow's study, published in the " Christian 
Union " a year ago, says, " The table is piled with 
pamphlets and papers in orderly confusion ; a 
high desk in one corner suggests a practice of 
standing while writing, and gives a hint of one 
secret of the poet's singularly erect form at an 
age when the body generally begins to stoop and 
the shoulders to grow round ; an orauge-tree 
stands in one window ; near it a bronze stork 
keeps watch ; by the side of the open fire is the 
children's chair ; on the table is Coleridge's ink- 
stand ; upon the walls are crayon likenesses of 
Emerson, Hawthorne, Felton, and Sumner ; and 
on one of the book-shelves, which fill all the spare 
wall-space and occup}^ even one of the windows, 
are, rarest treasure of all, the poet's own works in 
their original manuscript, carefully preserved in 
handsome and substantial bindings." Here, amid 
these pleasant surroundings, have been written in 
successive years so many of those poems, 

" Voices and melodies from beyond the gates," 

which have charmed so many waiting hearts in 
many lands. 

Mr. Longfellow retained his professorship at 



48 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Cambridge seventeen years, and then resigned, in 
order to give himself \Yholly to Hterary work. In 
1859 he received from Harvard College the hon- 
orary degree of LL. D. ; and on revisiting Europe 
in 1868-69 he received the degree of D. C. L. at 
both Cambridge and Oxford. This was a just rec- 
ognition of his extended fame, an expression of 
the high honor in which he was held by men of 
letters on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Throughout his long career as a poet Mr. Long- 
fellow has not been conspicuous upon public oc- 
casions. What he has written has been by an 
impulse from within, not from without. His 
"Morituri Salutamus," read at Bowdoin College in 
1876, was not an exception. It was the fiftieth 
anniversary of his college class, and though he 
was asked to honor the day with his verse, these 
words that breathe and thoughts that burn bore 
witness to the pure source from which they came. 
Of those who were present on that memorable 
day none will ever forget the scene in the church 
when the now venerable poet, surrounded by his 
classmates, saluted the well-known places of his 
youth, beloved instructors, of Avhom all save one 
had passed into the land of shadows, the students 
who filled the seats he and his companions had 
once occupied, and finally his classmates, 

" Against wliose familiar names not yet 
The fatal asterisk of death is set." 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 49 

One of these classmates, the Rev. David Shep- 
ley, D. D., referring to the poet, says, " How did 
we exult in his pure character and his splendid 
reputation ! With what delight gaze upon his in- 
telligent and benignant countenance ! With what 
moistening eye listen to his words ! And what 
limit was there to the blessing we desired for him 
from the Infinite Author of mind ! " And he 
adds, " Just before leaving for our respective 
homes, we gathered in a retired college room for 
the last time, talked together a half-hour as of 
old, agreed to exchange photographs, and prayed 
together; then going forth and standing for a 
moment once more under the branches of the old 
tree, in silence we took each other by the hand 
and separated, knowing well that Brunswick will 
not again witness a gathering of the class of 
1825." 

But the poet had not indulged in any vain re- 
grets. Manifestly he revealed somewhat his own 
purpose when, in closing his poem, on that occa- 
sion, he said, — 

" Something remains for us to do or dare ; 
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear. 



For age is opportunity no less 
Than youth itself, though in another dress, 
And as the evening twilight fades away, 
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. 
4 



50 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

That opportunity Mr. Longfellow has faithfully 
used, and long may it be before we shall receive 
the latest fruit of his noble powers. 

The poet does not forget the place of his birth. 
It is still to him 

" The beautiful town 
That is seated by the sea." 

And hither he comes each season, in order that 
again he may 

" Go up and down 
The pleasant streets," 

and bring back his lost youth. He was here dur- 
ing the past summer. Strange forms, doubtless, 
he met, but he himself was not unknown. Indeed, 
he never walks these streets unrecognized. The 
recent action of the City Council of Portland in 
tendering him a public reception on this day, with 
the hospitalities of the city, was but the expression 
of a hearty desire on the part of the citizens of 
Portland to do honor to one who has conferred so 
much honor upon this "dear old town." To use 
his own words in the " Golden Legend," 

" Ah, yes ! we all 
Love him, from the bottom of our hearts ; " 

and we send him a birthday greeting, and add, 

" Be that sad year, poet, very far, 
That proves thee mortal by the little star. 
Yet since thy thoughts live daily in our own. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 51 

And have no heart to weep or smile alone, 
Since they are rooted in our souls, and so 
Will live forever, whither those shall go, 
Though some late asterisk may mark thy name, 
It never will be set against thy fame ! 
For the world's fervent love and praise of thee 
Have starred it first with immortality." 



GENERAL PELEG WADSWORTII, AND THE 

MATERNAL ANCESTRY OF HENRY 

W. LONGFELLOW. 

BY HON. WILLIAM GOOLD, WINDHAM. 

The pleasant duty assigned to me for this occa- 
sion is to trace the origin and history of General 
Wadsworth, — the maternal grandfather of Henry 
Wads worth Longfellow, — who had the military 
oversight of our frontier district of Maine, imme- 
diately after it was found that the British lodg- 
ment at Bagaduce, in 1779, was intended to be 
permanent. 

Peleg Wadsworth was the son of Deacon Peleg 
Wadsworth, of Duxhury, Massachusetts, and the 
fifth in descent from Christopher Wadsworth, who 
came from England, and settled in that town pre- 
vious to 1632, and whose known descendants in 
the United States are now numbered by thou- 
sands. 

Peleg Wadsworth, Jr., ^vns born at Duxbury, 
May 6, 1748. He graduated at Harvard College 
in the class of 1769, which numbered thirty-nine, 
and included several honorable names Avhich added 



SE VENTY-FIFTII BIR THDA Y. 53 

lustre to the class, one of which was Theophilus 
Parsons, who came to Falmouth as a school-teacher 
m 1770, and studied law with Theophilus Brad- 
bury ; but the Revolutionary troubles drove him 
away, and he became Chief Justice of the Massa- 
chusetts Supreme Court. Another member of the 
class was Alexander Scammell, also of Duxbury, 
who, after a brilliant military career in the Amer- 
ican army, received an inhuman wound, after be- 
ing taken prisoner at the siege of Yorktown, of 
which he died a month after. Both Wadsworth 
and Scammell, after graduation, taught school at 
Plymouth. In 1772 Wadsworth married Elizabeth 
Bartlett of that town. Their children, through 
their mother and grandmother Wadsworth, who 
was Lusanna Sampson, inherited the blood of five 
of the Mayflower pilgrims, including Elder Brew- 
ster and Captain John Alden. 

Immediately after the outrage at Lexington, 
Peleg Wadsworth raised in the old colony a com- 
pany of minute-men, of which the Continental 
Congress commissioned him captain in September, 
1775. He was engineer under General Thomas 
in laying out the defenses of Roxbury in 1776. 
He was in Colonel Cotton's regiment, which formed 
a part of a detachment which was ordered to throw 
up intrenchments on Dorchester Heights, and was 
appointed aid to General Ward, when the heights 



64 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Mere occupied in March. These works compelled 
Howe's fleet to leave Boston in haste. In 1778 
Wadsworth was appointed Adjutant-General of his 
State. 

In 1779 the British naval and army officers at 
Halifax became sensible that they were suffering 
from American privateers, which frequented the 
Penobscot waters, owing to their perfect knowl- 
edo;e of the numerous coves and harbors, which 
they could run into at any time to avoid the Brit- 
ish cruisers. 

The Admiral in command foresaw the advantage 
that would be gained by establishing a naval and 
military post in this quarter for a harbor of refuge 
for ships and fugitive loyalists, and to command 
the near coast and harbors, whence they could ob- 
tain a supply of some kinds of ship timber for the 
royal dockyard at Halifax. This was the year 
after the French King had assumed our quarrel 
with the mother country, and had sent a large fleet 
and army to our assistance, which gave the colo- 
nies confidence, and made them more aggressive. 

In June, 1779, it was decided at Halifax to send 
General McLane with a fleet to occupy Bagaduce, 
as the harbor best situated for their purpose. He 
arrived on the 12th of June with 900 troops and 
eight or nine vessels, all less than a frigate, under 
the command of Captain Henry Mowatt. who had 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 55 

become detestable to all Americans by his cruel 
burning of old Falmouth, four years previous. The 
people of Maine appealed to the General Court of 
Massachusetts for protection, and to have the in- 
vaders driven off by an immediate expedition, be- 
fore they could have time to complete their works 
of defense. The Massachusetts Board of War 
were instructed by the Legislature to collect a 
fleet, state and national, and if necessary to im- 
press any private armed vessels in the harbors of 
the State into their service, under the promise of 
fair compensation for all losses and detention. The 
Executive Department of the Province was then 
composed of the Council ; there was no State 
Governor until the next year. The Council or- 
dered Brigadier-Generals Thompson, of Cumber- 
land, and Gushing, of Lincoln, to detach severally 
GOO men from each of their brigades, and form 
them into two regiments. General Frost, of York, 
was directed to detail 300 men from his briu:ade 
for a reinforcement, if needed. 

The fleet consisted of nineteen armed vessels, 
carrying 344 guns, and convoying twenty-four 
transports. The flag-ship was the new Continental 
frigate Warren. Of the others, nine were ships, 
six brigs, and three sloops. The command of the 
fleet was intrusted to Richard Saltonstall, of Con- 
necticut, an officer of some naval experience. One 



66 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

hundred Massachusetts artillerists were embarked 
at Boston under their former commander, Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Paul Revere, who carried the news 
to Hancock and Adams at Lexinsrton that the 
British troops were on the /l-oad from Boston, in 
1775. The command of the land forces was given 
to Solomon Lovell, of Weymouth, Mass., the brig- 
adier-general of the militia of Suffolk, which then 
included Norfolk County. He was a man of cour- 
age but no war experience. Peleg Wadsworth, 
then Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, was the 
second in command. He had seen some service 
on Dorchester Heights during the siege of Boston 
and in other places. The ordnance was intrusted 
to the command of Colonel Revere. 

The Cumberland County regiment was under 
the command of Colonel Mitchell, of North Yar- 
mouth. The expedition was popular, and the peo- 
ple engaged in it with alacrity and zeal. Falmouth 
and Cape Elizabeth contributed a company each, 
consisting of volunteers from the most respectable 
families. • 

Under date June 20 th, Parson Smith of Fal- 
mouth records : '' People are everywhere in this 
State spiritedly appearing in the intended expedi- 
tion to Penobscot in pursuit of the British fleet 
and arm}^ there." This was a state expedition, 
for which Massachusetts advanced £50,000. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 57 

When the fleet was ready to sail from Towns- 
hend, now Boothba}^, the place of rendezvous, 
General LovcU's land forces numbered less than 
1,000 men, who had been paraded together only 
once, then at Boothbay. They were raw militia, 
who had seen no former service, except, perhaps, 
some individuals who had been in the Continental 
Army for a short time. It was a spirited body of 
men. Their fathers had been at the siege of Lou- 
isburg, thirty years before. In one month from 
the commencement to organize the expedition, it 
made its appearance in Penobscot Bay. 

The British commander heard of the American 
fleet four days before its arrival, and worked night 
and day to render his fortification defensible, yet 
it was far from being completed. He at once 
dispatched a vessel to Halifax, asking for assist- 
ance. On the 28th of July, after waiting two days 
for a calm, our vessels were drawn up in line of 
battle, and 200 militiamen and 200 marines were 
landed. The best landing-places were exposed to 
Mowatt's guns, and no landing could be effected 
except on the western side, which was a precipice 
150 feet high and very steep. This was guarded 
by a line of the enemy posted on the summit, who 
opened a brisk fire as soon as the boats came 
within gunshot, but the shot from the vessels went 
over their heads. As soon as the men landed the 



58 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

boats returned to the fleet, cutting off all means of 
retreat. No force could reach the summit in the 
face of such a fire of musketry, so the American 
troops were divided into three parties. One 
sought a practicable ascent at the right, one at 
the left, and the centre kept up a brisk fire to 
attract the attention of the enemy on the heights. 
Both the right and left parties gained the summit, 
followed by the centre in the face of a galling fire, 
which they were powerless to return. Captain 
Warren's company of volunteers from Falmouth 
was the first to form on the heights, when all 
closed on the enemy, who, after a sharp skirmish, 
made their escape, leaving thirty men killed and 
wounded. Of the attacking party of 400, one 
hundred were killed or wounded. The eno:ao:e- 
ment was short, but great pluck and courage were 
shown by the Americans. It has been said that 
no more brilliant exploit than this was accom- 
plished by our forces during the war, but this is 
the only bright spot in the record of the expedi- 
tion. After the retreat of the enemy, some slight 
intrenchments were thrown up by the sadly weak- 
ened little detachment, within 700 yards of the 
enemy's main works. These intrenchments were 
held by our men, and thus was made a good be- 
ginning. 

The same morning a council of war was called 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 59 

of the land and naval officers. The former were 
for summoning the garrison to surrender, but the 
Commodore and the most of his officers were op- 
posed to the measure. It was next proposed to 
storm the fort, but the Commodore refused to land 
any more of his marines, as those at the first land- 
ing suffered severely. The land force alone was 
deemed insufficient for a successful attack on the 
works, and a whale-boat express Avas dispatched 
to Boston for a reinforcement. General Lovell 
now commenced a reg-ular investment of the works 
by zigzag trenches for Revere's iilsufficient can- 
non, and approached to musket-shot distance of 
the fort, so that not one of the garrison dared to 
show his head above the embankments. 

It was afterwards ascertained that if a surrender 
had been demanded when first proposed the com- 
manding general was prepared to capitulate, so 
imperfect were his defenses. Commodore Salton- 
stall was self-willed, and disagreed with Generals 
Lovell and Wadsworth. During the two weeks' 
delay the British strengthened their defenses, and 
inclosed their works with a chevaiix-de-frise and 
an abattis outside of all, which rendered the storm- 
ing project impracticable, if the expected rein- 
forcement had arrived. The American Commo- 
dore kept up a dail}^ cannonade with a show of an 
attempt to enter the harbor, but it was only a 



GO IlEATcY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

show. A deserter from the Americans informed 
the British commander of an intended attack the 
next day, which prevented any success. 

On the 13 th of August a look-out vessel brought 
General Lovell news that a British squadron of 
seven sails was entering Penobscot Bay, in answer 
to General McLane's application to Halifax on the 
first discovery of the American fleet. A retreat 
was immediately ordered by General Lovell, and 
conducted by General Wadsworth in the night 
with so much skill that the whole of the troops 
were on board, the transports, undiscovered by the 
enemy. The British squadron, consisting of one 
74-gun ship, one frigate, and five smaller vessels, 
all under the command of Sir John Collier, with 
1,500 troops on board, entered the harbor the next 
morning. Saltonstall kept his position until the 
transports retreated up the river, when a broad- 
side from Collier's ship caused a disorderly flight, 
and a general chase and indiscriminate destruc- 
tion of the American fleet. Several vessels were 
blown up by their own crews to prevent their 
falling into the hands of the enemy. 

The troops and crews of the vessels left them 
for the woods. Most of the officers and men of 
the fleet and army made their way through the 
woods, guided by the Penobscot Indians, who Avere 
friendly to the provinces through the war for in- 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 61 

dependence. These straggling parties suffered 
every privation before reaching the settlements, 
subsisting on such game and fish as they were able 
to obtain. A large number were piloted by the 
Indians to Fort Halifax, where they were recruited, 
and returned home by the Kennebec. 

A court of inquiry as to the cause of the failure 
of the expedition gave as their opinion " That the 
principal reason of the failure of the expedition 
was the want of the proper spirit on the part of 
the Commodore. That the destruction of the fleet 
was occasioned essentially because of his not ex- 
erting himself at all in the time of the retreat, by 
opposing the enemy's foremost ships in pursuit." 
" That General Lovell, throughout the expedition 
and retreat, acted with proper courage and spirit ; 
and had he been furnished with all the men or- 
dered for the service, or been properly supported 
by the Commodore, he would probably liav6 re- 
duced the enemy." The court spoke in the 
highest terms of General Wadsworth. Upon this 
report the General Court adjudged "That Commo- 
dore Saltonstall be incompetent ever after to hold 
a commission in the service of the State, and that 
Generals Lovell and Wadsworth be honorably ac- 
quitted." 

In answer to General Lovell's appeal for assist- 
ance by the whale-boat express to Boston, a regi- 



G2 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

ment under Colonel Henry Jackson proceeded to 
Falmoath on their way to the Penobscot, where 
they heard of the disaster of the expedition. 

When I was a boy, sixty years ago, many of the 
men of Cumberland County who had been in the 
Bagaduce expedition were then living; some of 
them were my own relatives. I have often heard 
angry discussions between those of the land and 
those of the naval service. The landsmen always 
assumed the aggressive, and had the best of the 
argument. It was the opinion of both that if 
General Wadsworth had been in chief command 
on shore the gallant detachments which first 
gained the heights could not have been restrained 
until they had crossed bayonets with the garrison 
of the half-built fortress ; and that was the time 
to have carried the works. 

After the failure of the Bagaduce expedition the 
British pursued a system of outrageous plundering 
on the shores of Penobscot Bay and the neighbor- 
ing coast, in which they were piloted and assisted 
by the numerous Tories who had gathered at Bag- 
aduce and in the vicinity. To protect the people 
from this plundering, the Continental Congress, 
in 1780, ordered 600 men to be detached from the 
three eastern brigades of the State, for eight 
months' service. Every soldier was ordered to 
march well equipped, witliin twenty -four hours 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 63 

after he was cletaclied, or pay a fine of sixty 
pounds currency, wliicli was to bo applied to pro- 
cure a substitute. The command of the whole 
eastern department, between the Piscataqua and 
St. Croix, was given to General Wadsworth, with 
power to raise more troops if they were needed. 
He was also empowered to declare and execute 
martial law over territory ten miles in width 
upon tlie coast east of the Kennebec, according 
to the rules of the American army. His head- 
quarters were established at Thomaston. For the 
purpose of protecting his friends, the General 
found it necessary to draw a line of demarkation 
between them and their foes. He issued a proc- 
lamation prohibiting any intercourse with the 
enemy. This paper, of which I have a copy, is 
dated at Thomaston, 18th of April, 1780, and de- 
clares the penalty of military execution for any 
infringement of it. The people of the islands east 
of Penobscot to Union Ptiver, " from their exposed 
situation," were ordered to hold themselves as 
neutrals. All persons joining the enemy were to 
be treated as deserters from the American army. 

This proclamation did not have the desired 
effect. The most bitter of the Tories supposed 
that they would be protected by General Campbell, 
who was now in command; but he disnpproved of 
their plundering. Captain Mowatt, of detestable 



64 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

memory, who was in command of the British 
squadron, was of a different character, and encour- 
aged their depredations, when they became very 
aggressive. A stanch friend of the American 
cause at Broad Bay, named Soule, was shot in his 
bed, and his wife was wounded. This drew from 
General Wadsworth another proclamation, de- 
nouncing death to any one convicted of secreting 
or giving aid to the enemy. Soon after a man 
named Baum was detected in secreting and aiding 
Tories to reach Castine. lie was tried by court- 
martial, found guilty of treason, and General 
Wadsworth ordered his execution by hanging the 
next morning, which was carried into effect. 
This effectually checked the intercourse with Bag- 
aduce. A daughter of General Wadsworth, in 
writing; of the circumstance to a son-in-law in 
1834, said, " My mother has told me that my 
father was greatly distressed at being obliged to 
execute the penalty of the law." General Wads- 
worth's wife was with him at the time. 

After the term of service of the 600 troops had 
expired, General Wadsworth was left with only 
six soldiers as a guard at his house, it being his 
intention also to leave within a week or two. 
His family consiste*d of his wife and son of five 
years, and Miss Fcnno, of Boston, a particular 
friend of Mrs. Wadsworth. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 05 

Made acquainted with his defenseless condition 
by spies, General Campbell, at Bagaduce, dis- 
patched a party of twenty-five men under Lieu- 
tenant Stockton to take him prisoner. They left 
their vessel four miles off, and mtirched to his resi- 
dence, arriving at about midnight, February 18, 
1781. The General had plenty of fire-arms in his 
sleeping-room, and when his house was entered 
l)y the enemy he made a determined defense, un- 
til he was shot in the arm, when he surrendered, 
and was hurried off to the vessel. When he be- 
came weak from the loss of blood, he Avas set on a 
horse for the march. He suffered much from cold 
and pain from his wound. He Avas taken across 
the bay to Castine, and imprisoned in Fort George 
for 'two weeks. He knew nothing of the fate of 
the members of his family who had been exposed 
to the firing. At the request of General Wads- 
worth, General Campbell sent a lieutenant with a 
boat's crew to Camden across the bay, with letters 
to his family and to the Governor of the State, 
which were inspected previous to sealing. Fi- 
nally, a letter was received from Mrs. Wadsworth, 
containing an assurance that they were unharmed. 
General Campbell treated his prisoner very po- 
litely, inviting him to eat at his own table, under 
guard of an orderly sergeant, but refused him a 
parole or exchange. In the spring, four months 

5 



66 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

after his seizure, Mrs. Wadsworth and Miss Fenno, 
with a passport from General Campbell, arrived at 
Bagaduce, and were politely entertained at the 
fort for ten days. In the mean time orders had 
arrived from the commanding general at New 
York, in answer to a communication from Gen- 
eral Campbell. Their purport was learned from a 
hint conveyed to Miss Fenno by an officer, that 
the General was not to be exchanged, but would 
be sent to some English prison. When Miss 
Fenno left she gave the General all the informa- 
tion she dared to ; she said, " General Wadsworth, 
take care of yourself." This the General inter- 
preted to mean that he was to be conveyed to 
England, and he determined to make his escape 
from the fortress, if possible. Soon after a vessel 
arrived from Boston with a flao; of truce from the 
Governor and Council, asking for an exchange for 
the General and bringing a sum of money for his 
use ; but the request was refused. 

Major Burton, a resident of St. George's River, 
who had served the previous summer under Gen- 
eral Wadsworth, was a prisoner in the same room 
with him. After a long preparation, and by ob- 
taining a gimlet from the fort barber, they made 
their escape on the night of the 18th of June, 
passing through an opening previously and labori- 
ously made in the board ceiling with the gimlet, 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 67 

the marks of which were filled with bread. They 
adroitly evaded the sentinels, but were separated 
in the darkness, both, however, getting off safely. 
They kept much in the shoal water of the shores, 
to prevent being tracked by the blood-hounds 
which were kept at the fort for that purpose. 
The two friends came accidentally together on the 
next day. Major Burton dropped a glove in the 
darkness, which pointed out to their pursuers the 
route they had taken on leaving the fort. They, 
however, found a canoe, got across the river, and 
pursued their course through the woods by a 
pocket compass to the settlements, and were as- 
sisted to Thomaston, after much suffering. On 
arriving at his former residence. General Wads- 
worth found that his family had left for Boston, 
whither he followed them, after a brief stop at 
Falmouth, where he finally fixed his residence. 

In 1797 President D wight, of Yale College, 
who had been a chaplain in the American army, 
visited Portland, and was the guest of General 
Wadsworth, from whom he says he " received an 
uninterrupted succession of civilities." He also 
received from the General, and wrote out, a mi- 
nute and thrilling account of his capture, impris- 
onment, and escape, which cover twenty-five 
printed pages. General Wadsworth, at the time 
of its publication, vouched for its accuracy. 



68 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

The record of the births of his eleven children 
shows the places where the General lived at the 
time. The oldest was born at Kingston, Mass., in 
1774, and died the next year at Dorchester. 
Charles Lee was born at Plymouth, January, 1776, 
and died at Hiram, September 29, 1848. Zilpah 
was born at Duxbury, January 6, 1778, died in 
Portland, March 12, 1851. Elizabeth, born in 
Boston, September 21, 1779, died in Portland, 
August 1, 1802. John, born at Plymouth, Sep- 
tember 1, 1781, graduated at Harvard College in 
1800, died at Hiram, January 22, 1860. Lucia, 
born at Plymouth, June 12, 1783, died in Port- 
land, October 17, 1864. Henry, born at Fal- 
mouth, Me., June 21, 1785, died at Tripoli, 
September 4, 1804. George, born in Portland, 
January 6, 1788, died in Philadelphia, April 8, 
1816. Alexander Scammell, born in Portland, 
May 7, 1790, died at Washmgton, April 5, 1851. 
Samuel Bartlett, born in Portland, September 1, 
1791, died at Eastport, October 2, 1874. Peleg, 
born in Portland, October 10, 1793, died at Hiram, 
January 17, 1875. 

The following letter, with a copy of the State 
deed of the tract of land in Iliram, was received 
at the last moment previous to the meeting, too 
late to correct dates or facts : — 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 69 

[Copy of a letter written by General Pelcg Wadsworth to Aldea 
Bradford, Esq.] 

Hiram, 17 th Julij, 1827. 

Dear Sir : Observing your advertisement in the 
Colunibiun Sentinel of the 11th inst, requesting surviv- 
ing officers of the Revokitionary Army of the State of 
Mass. and of Me. to forward to you their rank in 1780, 
&c, in compHance, I have sketched the following — 
though I do not know whether I come within your 
request, as I was not of the line of the Continental 
Army after the first two years of the War. I was a 
Captain in Cotton's and Bailey's Regiments, the two 
first years, and was Aid De Camp to Gen'l Ward as 
long as he continued in the service, which I believe 
was till the year 1777, with the rank of major. 

Afterwards, I was in the Continental service (as it 
was called) under the appointment of the Legislature of 
Mass. — was second in command with Gen. Lovell on 
the in-glorious Penobscot Expedition in 1778, with the 
rank of Brigadier Gen'l ; the next year, viz., 1770, had 
the command of the whole coast of the District of Maine, 
by the same authority, at the close of which, or rather 
the beginning of 1780, 1 was taken prisoner (as you may 
see by looking at 210th page of Rev. Charles A. Good- 
rich's History of United States). After that I was not 
in the military service. I was 32 years old when ap- 
pointed a Brigadier Gen'l (by the Gov. and Council) 
and lived in Boston at that tiuie, moved to Poi'tland in 
1784, and to Hiram in 1810, where I now reside, and am 
in my 80th year. 

I know of no widows of the description you mention, 



70 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Dor do I know for what purpose you have requested the 
above, but as the motive is, no doubt, benevolent, I 
cheerfully subscribe myself your friend and serv't, 

Peleg Wadsworth. 
Alden Bradford, Esq. 

The birth of a son there in September, 1781, 
shows that General Wadsworth took his family to 
Plymouth on leaving his command in Maine. A 
daughter was also born there, in 1783. It is 
known that he came to Falmouth in 1784. In 
December of that year he purchased of John 
Ingersoll, of Boston, shipwright, for 100 pounds 
lawful money, the lot of land in Falmouth on 
which he erected his buildings for a home. In 
the deed he is named of that town. The purchase 
is described as " lying northeast of a lot now pos- 
sessed by Captain Arthur McLellan, being four 
rods in front and running towards Back Cove and 
containing one and one half acres. Being part of 
three acres originally granted to Daniel Ingersoll 
as appears on the records of the town of Falmouth, 
Book No. 1, page 46." This is the Congress Street 
lot on which he erected his house and store. 

Dr. Deane, in his diary, sa3^s his store and barn 
were built in 1784. While he was building his 
house, he, with his family, lived in a building at 
the south corner of Franklin and Congress streets, 
belonging to Captain Jonathan Paine. It was built 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 71 

for a barn, but probably had been occupied before 
as a dwelling, as it escaped Mowatt's burning, ten 
years before, which compelled well-to-do people to 
occupy very humble quarters. This building was 
long afterwards finished for a dwelling-house by 
Elijah Adams, and burned in 1866. In the spring 
of 1785 General Wadsworth made preparation to 
erect his house. There had then been no attempt 
in the town to construct all the walls of a buildinor 
of brick ; indeed, there had been no suitable brick 
for walls made here. At that time brick buildings 
were expected to have a projecting base of several 
courses, — the top one to be of brick fashioned 
for the purpose, the outer end of which formed a 
regular moulding when laid on edge and endwise, 
and the walls receded several inches to the per- 
pendicular face. Several houses besides General 
Wadsworth's were commenced in this way. In 
the sprhig of 1785 the General obtained brick for 
his house in Philadelphia, including those for the 
base and a belt above the first story. John Nich- 
ols was the master mason. 

Although the house was to be only two stories, 
the walls were built sixteen inches thick, strong 
enough for a church tower. This swallowed iip 
the bricks more rapidly than had been expected. 
At the close of the season they were all laid, and 
the walls were not completed. There was no 



72 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

alternative but to secure the masonry from the 
weather, and wait for another spring. When that 
came more bricks were imported, and " the house 
that Jack [Nichols] built" was finished. It is yet 
standing, and shows good work in the artistic win- 
dow-caps of brick. There was no other brick 
house built in town until three years after. The 
Wadsworth House, when originally finished, had 
a high pitched roof of two equal sides, and four 
chimneys. The store adjoined the house at the 
southeast, with an entrance door from the house, 
and was of two stories. Here the General sold all 
kinds of goods needed in the town and country 
trade. His name appears in the records with 
some forty others as licensed " retailers " of the 
town in 1785. What time he gave up the store 
is uncertain. The late Edward Howe, who occu- 
pied it in 1805, described it to me. 

General Wadsworth was elected to the Massachu- 
setts Senate in 1792, and the same year he was 
elected Kepresentative to Congress, being the first 
from the Cumberland district, and was continuously 
elected to that office until 1806, when he declined 
a reelection. In 1798 the citizens of Portland 
gave him a public dinner in approbation of his 
official conduct. Captain William Merrill related to 
me the circumstance that when the seat of govern- 
ment was removed from Philadelphia to Washing- 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 73 

ton, in 1801, General Waclsworth took passage in 
his vessel for Baltimore, that being the most speedy 
and comfortable way to reach Washington. 

In 1790 General Wadsworth purchased from 
the State of Massachusetts 7,500 acres of wild land, 
in the township which is now Hiram, on the Saco 
River. The price paid was twelve and a half cents 
per acre. He immediately commenced to clear a 
farm on a large scale, as is shown by a paragraph 
in the "Eastern Herald" of September 10, 1792, 
published in Portland. It says, " General Wads- 
worth thinks he has raised more than 1,000 bushels 
of corn this season on burnt land, that is now out 
of danger of the frost, at a place called Great Ossi- 
pee, about thirty-six miles from this town. This 
is but the third year of his improvements." In 
1790 the township contained a population of 186. 

In 1795 General Wadsworth settled his son 
Charles Lee on his tract, and in 1800 he began 
to prepare to remove his own family there. In 
that year he commenced to build on his land- 
purchase a large house, which is yet standing, one 
mile from Hiram village. The clay for the bricks 
of the chimneys was brought down Saco River 
three miles in a boat. This house was of two 
stories, with a railed outlook on the ridge between 
the two chimneys. There was a very large one- 
story kitchen adjoining, with an immense chimney 
and fire-place. Years after its building, the Gen- 



74 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

eral's youngest son, Peleg, said that at the time of 
the erection of the house he was seven years old, 
and was left by his father to watch the fires in 
the eleven fire-places, which were kindled to dry 
the new masonry, while he rode to the jDOst road 
for his mail, and that he had not felt such a weidit 
of resj)onsibility since. 

The General took his family and household 
goods to his new home in the first of the winter, 
and commenced housekeeping in the new house 
January 1, 1807. He, with his son Charles Lee, 
engaged in lumbering and farming. General 
Wadsworth was a skilKul land surveyor and 
draughtsman, and was much employed in the new 
township. He was chosen selectman in 1812, and 
reelected annually until 1818, and was twelve 
years town treasurer. He was a magistrate, and 
was looked upon as the patriarch of the town. 
He was a patron of education, and his home was 
the central point of the region for hospitality and 
culture. He was long a communicant of the Con- 
gregational church, and so continued until his 
death in 1829, at the age of eighty-one. Mrs. 
Wadsworth died in 1825. Their graves are in a 
private inclosure on the home farm. The original 
modest head-stones have give place to a more con- 
spicuous monument of marble. The son Peleg, 
who was thirteen years old when the family moved 
to Hiram, spent the remainder of his life in that 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 75 

town, and died in 1875, at the age of eighty-one. 
It is a remarkable fact that General Wadsworth 
and his sons Charles Lee and Peleg, who lived and 
died at Hiram, each reared eleven children. For 
the facts relating to General Wadsworth's life at 
Hiram I am indebted to his great-grandson, L. W. 
Wadsworth, who has in preparation a history of 
that town. 

In W'ritino; to her dansrhter, Mrs. Lona;fellow 
described the appearance of her father. General 
Wadsworth, in the following postscript : — 

Perhaps you would like to see my father's picture as 
it was when we came to this town after the war of the 
Revolution, in 1781. Imagine to yourself a man of mid- 
dle size, well proportioned, with a military air, and who 
carried himself so truly that many thouglit him tall. His 
dress, a bright scarlet coat, buff small clothes and vest, 
full ruffled bosom, ruffles over the hands, white stockings, 
shoes with silver buckles, white cravat bow in front ; hair 
well powdered and tied behind in a club, so called. . . . 
Of his character others may speak, but I cannot forbear 
to claim for him an uncommon share of benevolence and 
kind feeling. Z. W. L. 

Jaituanj, 1848. 

Two of the sons of General Wadsworth were 
officers in the United States navy. Henry'became 
a lieutenant at the age of nineteen, and was at- 
tached to the schooner Scourge in Commodore 
Preble's squadron, before Tripoli, in 1804. The 
last entry in his journal before the attack in whicli 



7G 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



he lost his hfe was this : " We are in daily ex- 
pectation of the Commodore's arrival from Syra- 
cuse with the gun-boats and bomb vessels, and 
then, Tripoli, be on thy guard." The story of his 
sad death is told in the inscription on a marble 
cenotaph, erected by his father to his memory, in 
the eastern cemetery in Portland, near the graves 
of the captains of the Enterprise and Boxer: — 



IS. W.face.'] 

In memory of 

Henry Wadsworth, 

son of 

Peleg Wadsavorth, 

Lieut. U. S. Navy, 

who fell 

Before the walls of Tripoli on 

the eve of 4th Sept., 

1804, 

in the 20th year of his age, by 

the explosion of a 

fire ship, 

which he with others gallantly 

conducted against the Enemy. 



IS. E. face.'] 
Determined at once they 
prefer death and the destruc- 
tion of 

the Enemy 
to captivity and torturing 
Slavery. 
Com. Preble's 

letter. 



\_N. E. face.'] 
My country calls. 

This world adieu ; 
I have one life, 

That life I give for you. 



Capt. Richard Somers. 



Lieut. Henry Wadsworth. 



Lieut. Joseph Israel. 



and 10 brave seamen 

volunteers 
were the devoted band. 



{N. W. facer] 

" An honor to his 

Country 

and an example to all 

excellent 

youth." 

Resolve of Congress. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 77 

It is from this gallant officer, his uncle, that the 
poet Longfellow received his name. 

The General's ninth child was Alexander Scam- 
mell Wadsworth, born in Portland in 1790. When 
the Constitution frigate fought her memorable 
battle, in August, 1812, in which she captured the 
British frigrate Guerriere after her three masts 
had been shot away by the Americans, Alexander 
Wadsworth was second lieutenant of the victorious 
ship. The first lieutenant, Morris, was severely 
wounded early in the action, when Lieutenant 
Wadsworth of course took his place, then only 
twenty-four. So well did he acquit himself that 
his fellow townsmen of Portland presented him 
with a sword for his gallantry. Lieutenant Wads- 
worth was an officer on board the ship which con- 
veyed our minister, Joel Barlow, to France in 
1811, and was presented with a sword by that 
Q-entleman. The lieutenant rose to the rank of 
commodore, and died in Washington in 1851, 
aged sixty-one. 

Another of the children of General Wadsworth, 
Zilpah, performed her part in life as bravely, and 
died as much beloved and honored, as did her gal- 
lant brothers of the navy. She was born at Dux- 
bury, January 6, 1778, while her father was in 
the army. When the family first occupied the 
brick house in Portland she was eight years old. 



78 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

and recollected the inconveniences and discomforts 
of the unfinished quarters in which they lived 
while the house was building. 

In 1799, June 25, Zilpah Wadsworth, in behalf 
of the ladies of Portland, presented a military 
standard to a volunteer company called the Fed- 
eral Volunteers. It was the first uniformed com- 
pany in Maine. Joseph C. Boyd was captain, and 
the ensign, who received the standard and replied 
to the presentation address, was named Wiggin. 
In after years, Mrs. Longfellow described to her 
daughters the rehearsal of her speech and the 
waving of the banner on the back steps of her 
father's house to her sister, who personated En- 
sign Wiggin. The presentation was from the front 
portico of that historic mansion. The street has 
been filled up since then, hiding the stone steps. 
The motto on the flag was " Defend the laws." 
On one side was painted the arms of the United 
States, and on the other the same, united with the 
arms of Massachusetts. 

In 1804 Zilpah Wadsworth became the wife of 
Stephen Longfellow, and first kept house in a two- 
story wooden building yet standing on the south 
corner of Congress and Temple streets. When 
her father's family left the brick house for a new 
home in the country in 1807, she, with a family of 
a husband and two sons, took the old homestead. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 79 

Mr. Longfellow moved the store, and in its place 
built the brick vestibule at the east corner, over 
which he placed a modest sign, which was there 
within my recollection ; it read " Stephen Long- 
fellow, Counsellor at Law." He occupied the east- 
ern front room for his law office, opening from the 
brick entry. In this office several young students, 
who became prominent lawyers of Cumberland 
County, read " Coke and Blackstone." 

One day in 1814 or 1815, while Mrs. Longfellow 
was indisposed and the family physician was in 
attendance, the servant overheated the kitchen 
flue, which took fire and communicated the flames 
to the attic. The family knew nothing of the fire 
until it broke out through the roof. Mr. Long-fel- 
low was the chief fire-ward of the department, but 
his first thought was of his sick wife, whom he 
hastily inquired for of Dr. Weed. He told Mr. 
Longfellow to look to the fire, and he would take 
care of his wife. When it became evident that 
the house must be flooded, the doctor, who was a 
tall, muscular man, wrapped Mrs. Longfellow in a 
blanket, and carried her in his arms into Madam 
Preble's, the next door, now the hotel. A lady of 
the family, who was then a child, described the 
scene to me. Her first realization of the damz-er 
was from seeing her father standing on a post of 
the front fence, with a brass trumpet to his mouth, 



80 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

giving loud orders to the gathering firemen, and 
gesticulating violently. After it had nearly de- 
stroyed the roof, the fire was extinguished. 

To increase the accommodations for his large 
family, Mr. Longfellow added to the house a third 
story, and a low four-sided or " hipped " roof took 
the place of the high two-sided one, with the 
chimneys the same. And thus repaired, the ven- 
erable structure, around which so much of histor- 
ical interest clusters, has remained to the present 
time. Although overshadowed and crowded upon 
by its more pretentious neighbors, it is more in- 
quired for now by strangers than any other house 
in the city. May the polite and refined descend- 
ant of its builder, who is now its mistress, long con- 
tinue to preside there and dispense its traditional 
hospitalities. 



THE PORTLAND OF LONGFELLOW'S 
YOUTH. 

y 

BY EDWARD H. ELWELL, POUTLAND. 

The year 1807, made illustrious in the history 
of Portland by the birth of Heniy W. Longfellow, 
was also, in other respects, a year of marked 
events. It witnessed the beginnings of many 
things whose influence still remains with ns. Li 
1807 another poet, who became distinguished for 
his sprightly and graceful style, the late Nathaniel 
P. Willis, was born in Portland. In 1807 the Rev. 
Edward Payson began here, as the colleague of 
Rev. Elijah Kellogg, his wonderful pastorate of 
twenty years. In 1807 the third parish meeting- 
house, in which the late Rev. Dr. Dwif»;ht so lomic 
officiated, was built. In 1807 the increasing de- 
mands of commerce caused the erection of the 
Observatory on Mun joy's Hill. In 1807 the com- 
merce of this port, which had gone on increasing 
with giant strides for a period of more than ten 
years, had reached a high state of prosperity ; and 
in 1807 the embargo fell upon and crushed it with 
one fell stroke, spreading ruin and disaster through- 



82 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

out the community. It was the culmmation of a 
period of great prosperity, and the beginning of a 
season of adversity ending in the calamities of war. 
The httle fishing village on the Neck, ravaged 
by the Indians in 1676, destroyed by the French 
and Indians in 1690, bombarded and burned by 
the British in 1775, after the close of the Revolu- 
tion again sprang into existence, and, profiting by 
the Napoleonic wars in Europe, in common with 
the whole country, entered upon a career of un- 
exampled commercial prosperity. American bot- 
toms, as being declared neutrals, were the only 
safe carriers, and largely monopolized the com- 
merce of the world. Our merchants, no longer 
content with a coasting trade, engaged in foreign 
commerce, and did a large importing business. 
The tonnage of the port largely increased. Wealth 
flowed in, and with it came greater refinement and 
a more lavish style of living. The humble habita- 
tions of the earlier period, which in 1799 the Duke 
de la Rochefoucauld had described as " a parcel of 
mean houses," began to give place to large and 
elegant mansions, some of which still remain to 
testify to the architectural taste as well as the 
prosperity of the period. The first brick store, 
built in 1792, was followed in 1799 by the erec- 
tion of Mussey's Row, on Middle Street, and in 
1801 bv Jones' Row, on Exchange Street, built 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 83 

by the Rev. Elijah Kellogg ; for the commercial 
spirit of the time had seized upon the ministers of 
the gospel. The town was full of enterprise. 
New wharves were thrown out into the harbor, 
banks were established, and a desirable class of 
residents came in, bringing capital with them. The 
little village, which for ten years after its destruc- 
tion by Mowatt had lain desolate, now began to 
take on a solid and substantial air. In 1798 the 
Duke de la Rochefoucauld wrote of Portland as 
" so remote and so rarely visited by travelers," 
but in 1807 Dr. Dwight, traveling hither, could 
write : " No place in our route, hitherto, could for 
its improvement be compared with Portland. We 
found the buildings extended quite to the Cove, 
doubled in their number, and still more increased 
in their appearance. Few towns in New England 
are equally beautiful and brilliant. Its wealth and 
business are probably quadrupled." 

All this prosperity was suddenly checked by the 
non-intercourse policy of 1806, and the embargo 
which followed in 1807. Commerce was at once 
suspended, and the almost total destruction of our 
shipping followed. Navigation fell off nine thou- 
sand tons in two years ; all the various classes to 
whom it gave support were thrown out of emploj-- 
ment ; eleven commercial houses stopped payment 
in the latter part of 1807, and many others the 



84 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

following year. Great distress fell upon the peo- 
ple, a reverse made more gloomy by contrast with 
the preceding prosperity. 

Then came the war of 1812, bringing some 
activity in the way of privateering, and the 
movement of troops for the defense of the town. 
Fortifications were thrown up on Munjoy, and 
garrisons were established in them. Here begin 
the recollections of our poet, then a boy of six 
or seven years, as recorded in his poem of " My 
Lost Youth." 

" I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 
And the fort upon the hill ; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er, 
And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 
Throbs in my memory still : 
* A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' " 

On the 4th of September, 1813, the British brig- 
of-war Boxer, Captain S. Blyth, was captured in 
a hard-fought action off our coast by the United 
States brig Enterprise, Lieutenant W. Burrows, 
and was brought into this port on the morning of 
the 7th ; and the next day the remains of both 
commanders, who were killed in the action, were 
buried in the cemetery at the foot of Munjoy's 
Hill. This was an event well calculated to im- 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 85 

press itself upon the memory of a boy, and our 
poet again sings, — 

" I remember the sea-fight far away, 

How it thundered o'er the tide ! 
And the dead captains, as they lay 
In their graves, o'erlookiug the tranquil bay, 

Where they in battle died." 

The town did not wholly recover from the 
severe blow of the embargo until after the peace 
of 1815. Then began a period of slow recupera- 
tion, during which its population made little in- 
crease. In 1800 the number of inhabitants was 
3,701 ; by 1810 they had increased to 7,169, but 
at the close of the next decade, in 1820, they were 
but 8,581. It is this little town of seven or eight 
thousand inhabitants that we have now to picture 
to ourselves as the scene of Longfellow's boy- 
hood : — 

" The beautiful town 

That is seated by the sea." 

It lay on the narrow peninsula, or ''Neck," in 
the depression between the two hills which mark 
its extremities, Munjoy and Bramhall. It had been 
first settled nearly two centuries before, on the 
sea-shore at its eastern end, and in all this long 
period of time it had advanced scarcely half-way 
towards the western end. The early settlers clus- 
tered around the fort, which stood at the foot of 



86 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

what is now India Street, and the shore road ex- 
tending eastward from India Street, forming now 
the easternmost part of Fore Street, was long the 
court end of the town. Here Major Samuel 
Moody, coming hither in 1716, built his house, 
and here in process of time sprang up a number 
of large square mansions, some with gambrel 
roofs, several of which yet remain. In one of 
these, standing, on the one hand, within a stone's- 
throw of the spot where the first settler landed 
and built his cabin, in 1632, and on the other not 
much farther from the site of old Fort Loyal, our 
poet was born seventy-five years ago to-day. He 
was thus cradled on historic ground, and sprang 
from amidst the earliest scenes of civilization on 
this peninsula. It was a pleasant site ; not then, 
as now, hemmed in by new-made land encroaching 
on the sea. It looked out on the waters of our 
beautiful bay, commanding a view of those 

" Islands that were the liespei'ides 
Of all my boyish dreams." 

Immediately opposite, skirting the road on the 
seaward side, lay the beach, the scene of many a 
baptism on a Sabbath day. It was not here, how- 
ever, that our poet spent his boyhood. His par- 
ents moved on with the progress of the town, and 
we shall find him at a later period established 
in what is at present the heart of the city. 



^^ 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 87 

Let US now take a comprehensive view of the 
town as it existed in the decade between 1810 and 
1820. As we have said, it nestled in the hollow 
between the two hills. On the south lay the har- 
bor, with its wharves and its shipping ; on the 
north the quiet waters of Back Cove, its shores 
nearly vacant, and its waters as yet undisturbed 
by commerce. 

On Munjoy's Hill there were but three houses, 
save those in old Fort Sumner. It was a pasture 
ground for cows in part, and in part was given up 
to a dense growth of alder bushes. On Indian 
Point, where the Grand Trunk bridge leaves the 
hill, stood seven or eight lofty ancient pine- 
trees, and in the high branches the fish hawks 
were wont to build their nests. The boys went 
a-gunning "back of the Neck," and shot plovers 
and curlews and sand-birds, which visited the 
shore in great numbers. At Fish Point, on the 
harbor side of the hill, the ledgy cliff, now blasted 
away to make room for the track of the Grand 
Trunk Railway, was cut deep with the names of 
boys who spent many a long summer afternoon in 
wandering around the solitary shore. The cliff 
terminated in a cove called " Abigail's Hole," 
after an aged Indian squaw who resided there, 
the last of the race that lived and died in Port- 
land. 



88 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

On the sloi^e of the hill towards the town stood 
a tall signal spar, with a tar-barrel suspended from 
its summit, which was to be set on fire should the 
enemy approach the town, or assistance be needed 
from the country. Washington Street, overlook- 
ing the Cove, commanding a view of the fine 
scenery beyond, and with its long alternating lines 
of Lombardy poplars and balm of gileads, was 
thought to be the prettiest street in town. Stand- 
ing on the western slope of the hill, one com- 
manded the town below at a single glance. All 
north of Cumberland Street was vacant land, 
known as the " Back Fields." Nearly all west of 
High Street was sunburnt pasture, where swamp 
alternated with huckleberry bushes. State Street 
had been laid out through the waste, and here and 
there along its line a stately mansion rose, with 
the huckleberry and bayberry bushes growing 
close up to its fences. Bramhall's Hill was a far- 
away wilderness. At the quiet hour of sunset one 
standing where the jail now stands, below Munjoy, 
could hear the sound of Caleb Young's fife on 
Bramhall's Hill, two miles away, no building to 
obstruct sisrht or sound intervening^. 

With the revival of commerce, after the war, 
trade with the West India islands sprang up, and 
low-decked brigs carried out cargoes of lumber 
and dried fish, bringing back sugar, rum, and mo- 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 89 

lasses. This trade made lively scenes on Long 
Wharf and Portland Pier. From lack of sys- 
tem and the appliances of steam, everj^thing was 
then done with great noise and bustle and by 
main strength. The discharging of a cargo of 
molasses set the town in an uproar. The wharves 
resounded with the songs of the negro stevedores, 
hoisting the hogsheads from the hold without the 
aid of a winch ; the long trucks, Avith heavy loads, 
were tugged by straining horses, under the whips 
and loud cries of the truckmen. Liquor was lav- 
ishly supplied to laboring men, and it made them 
turbulent and uproarious. Adding to the busy 
tumult were the teams coming mto town by the 
two principal avenues, over Deering's bridge and 
up Green Street, or over Bramhall's Hill by way 
of Horse Tavern, bringing charcoal from Water- 
borough, shooks from Fryeburg, Hiram, and Bald- 
win, hoop-poles, heading, cord-wood, and screwed 
hay ; and the Yermonters, in their blue woolen 
frocks, bringing in their red pungs round hogs, 
butter, and cheese. Rev. Elijah Kellogg, Jr., 
gives a lively picture of Portland at this time, on 
a winter morning, — 

" Then you might have seen lively times : a string of 
board teams from George Libby's to Portland Pier ; 
sleds growling ; surveyors running about like madmen, 
a shimrle in one hand and a rule-stalf in the other; cattle 



90 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

white with frost and their nostrils hung with icicles; 
teamsters screaming and hallooing ; Herrick's Tavern 
and all the shops in Huckler's Row, lighted up, and the 
loggerheads hot to give customers their morning dram." 

It is with such scenes as these rising in his 
memory that Longfellow sings, — 

" I remember the black wharves and the slips, 

Aud the sea-tides tossing free ; 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 

And the magic of the sea." 

Portland was a lumber port, driving a brisk 
little trade Avith more tumult and hurrah than 
now accompanies the transaction of ten times the 
amount of business then done. In addition to its 
lumber trade, it had its distilleries, its tanneries, 
its rope-walks, and its pottery, the latter two of 
which so impressed themselves upon the memory 
of the boy Longfellow that in after years they 
suggested his poems " The Ropewalk " and 
" Keramos," the song of the potter. Men now 
living, going back in memory to those bustling 
days, will tell you those were the times when 
trade was Hvely, and think it but a dull town 
now, though with five times the population and 
many times the amount of business. 

But let us push on into the heart of the " dear 
old town." Passing up Middle Street, where 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 91 

blocks of brick stores have already begun to take 
the place of dwelling-houses which once lined it, 
we enter Market Square. It wears an aspect 
quite different from that which it now presents. 
It is surrounded by small wooden shops, for the 
most part of one story. On the left, as we enter, 
stands the two - story wooden house known as 
Marston's Tavern, to which Mowatt was taken as 
a prisoner by Colonel Thompson and his men, in 
June, 1775. Mowatt did not succeed in burning 
it when, a few months later, he bombarded the 
town in revenge for this act of Thompson's, but 
when it was removed in 1833 one of his shot was 
found imbedded in the chimney. In the centre of 
the square, near where now is the eastern end of 
old City Hall, stands the hay scales, and next to 
that the market house, a wooden building ; and be- 
yond these a row of small wooden shops, termi- 
nating in a '' heater," nearly opposite the head of 
Preble Street. In one of these shops we shall find 
Nathaniel Shaw, the saddler, accumulating about 
his door that stratum of leather scraps which, 
when an excavation is made there many years 
after, is viewed with wonder as an antediluvian 
relic. In the " heater " is the shop of " I. Gray," 
the barber, and around the square may be seen 
the familiar names of David Trull, William Rad- 
ford, the cabinet-maker, and R. Horton, the gin- 



92 HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 

gerbread man, who dispensed his commodity from 
a wheelbarrow. 

At the corner of Preble Street, with its garden 
stretching far down that street, stands the brick 
mansion occupied by the widow of Commodore 
Edward Preble, the hero of Tripoli, dead since 
1807. Next to this, " somewhat back from the 
village street," is the brick residence built by the 
poet's maternal grandfather, General Peleg Wads- 
worth, and occupied by his father, Stephen Long- 
fellow, Esq. This is the home of the poet's 
boyhood, and in fancy we may see him playing 
beneath its ancient portal, which still remains un- 
altered. Beyond the Longfellow residence, with 
its garden on either side, extending on the west 
to the corner of Brown Street, is the two-story 
wooden residence of Reuben Morton, on the site 
now occupied by Morton Block. This house, 
raised to three stories, now stands on Brown 
Street. All the old family mansions here have 
been made to give way to the demands of trade, 
save the Longfellow residence, which still sturdily 
maintains its position, while its ancient neighbors 
have given place to lofty structures, which now 
look down upon but cannot humble it. 

In front of these mansions, extending from 
Preble to Brown Street, is the wood market, 
where the teams, loaded with cord-wood brought 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BTRTIWAY. 93 

in from the country, stand beneath the shade of a 
row of trees, with a raiUng between them and the 
sidewalk. The patient oxen feed upon the hay 
thrown upon the ground, while the w^ood surveyor 
measures the loads, and the teamsters bargain 
with the townsmen. It is a rural scene in the 
heart of the town. Passing a few small shops be- 
yond Brown Street, we come to " The Freema- 
son's Arms," the tavern built by Thomas Motley, 
grandfather of John Lothrop Motley, the histo- 
rian. Motley is dead since 1808, and his tav- 
ern, which gives accommodation to the board 
teams which come growling and creaking down 
Main (now Congress) Street of a winter morning, 
is now kept by Sukey Barker. The Motley 
Block, in our day, perpetuates the memory of its 
builder. Oak Street, which enters Main Street a 
short distance above Motley's, boasts a grove of 
red oaks, and Green Street, next beyond, leads 
down to Deering's Woods, where for generations 
the boys of Portland have gathered acorns, and of 
which our poet sings, — 

" Aud Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, 
And with joy that is almost pain 
My heart goes back to wander there, 
And among the dreams of the days that were, 
I find my lost youth again." 

What was the intellectual life of the old town ? 



94 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Up to the time of the Revolution it had imported 
its Uterature as well as the necessaries of life. 
Parson Smith was jotting down in his journal 
those quaint observations on the events of daily 
life which were to interest the coming genera- 
tions. His colleague, the Rev. Dr. Deane, in 
1790, published his " Georgical Dictionary," long 
a standard work on agriculture. He was a poet, 
too, and sang the praises of '' Pitch wood Hill." 
In 1816, when Longfellow was a boy of nine 
years, an event of marked literary importance oc- 
curred, the publication in Portland of Enoch Lin- 
coln's poem of " The Village," a poem of more 
than two thousand lines, remarkable for its ad- 
vanced moral sentiment, anticipating many of the 
reforms of our day, as well as for its erudition and 
its evenly sustained poetical merit. But at this 
time the activity and energy of the people were 
employed in procuring means of support, and in 
the accumulation of wealth, rather than in culti- 
vating the sources of intellectual improvement. 
Education was advancing, however, and a number 
of young men were coming upon the stage of 
action who were to shed the lustre of letters upon 
the town. These were Nathaniel Deering, born 
here in 1791 ; John Neal, also a native, born in 
1794 ; and Grenville Mellen, coming here from 
Biddeford, where he was born in 1799. Among 



SE VEN TV-FIFTH BIR Til DA Y. 9 5 

these seniors walked the boy Longfellow, who was 
to outstrip them all. 

In the ranks of the professions here there were 
many able men. The Rev. Dr. Deane, dying in 
1814, has left as his successor in the First Parish 
that scholarl}^ divine, the Rev. Ichabod Nichols. 
The Rev. Dr. Payson, at the Second Parish, is 
preaching those powerful sermons which are to 
make his name famous. The Rev. Thomas B. 
Ripley has begun his popular pastorate over the 
First Baptist church. The Rev. Petrus S. Ten- 
broeck is rector at St. Paul's. Elder Samuel 
Rand is preaching to the Free-Will Baptists, and 
the Rev. Russell Streeter is fighting the battle of 
the Universalists in the newly-built church at the 
corner of Congress and Pearl streets. 

In the law there are eminent counselors, some 
of whom are rising; to distinction. Prentiss Mel- 
len, Ezekiel Whitman, James D. Hopkins, Simon 
Greenleaf, and the poet's father, Stephen Long- 
fellow, are names which have conferred honor on 
the Cumberland bar. Among physicians. Dr. Na- 
thaniel Coffin, Jr., stands at the head of his pro- 
fession. There are Dr. Shirley Erving, too, and 
Dr. Samuel Weed, and Dr. Stephen Cummings, 
and Dr. Aaron Porter, in his knee-breeches and 
green silk stockings, which, it is said, the cows 
mistook for cornstalks. 



96 HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 

There are eminent merchants in the town, of 
whom it is sufficient to mention the famiHar names 
of Matthew Cobb, A«a Clapp, WilHam Chadwick, 
Arthur McLellan, James Deering, and Albert 
Newhall. These are gentlemen of the old school, 
sustaining the shock of commercial disaster, and 
extending the commerce of the town. 

In social life the marked distinctions of the ante- 
Hevolutionary period are giving way under the 
influence of our democratic institutions. Cocked 
hats, bush wigs, and knee-breeches are passing 
out, and pantaloons have come in. Old men 
still wear queues and spencers, and disport their 
shrunken shanks in silk stockings. A homely 
stjde of speech prevails among the common peo- 
ple. Old men are " Daddies," old ladies are 
"Marms," shipmasters are " Skippers," and school- 
teachers are " Masters." There are no stoves, 
and open fires and brick ovens are in universal 
use. The fire is raked up at night, and rekindled 
in the morning by the use of flint, steel, and tin- 
der-boxes. Nearly every house has its barn, in 
which is kept the cow, pastured during the day 
on Munjoy or in Ross's pasture. The boys go 
after the cows at night-fall, driving them home 
through the streets. There are fcAV private car- 
riages kept in town, and fewer public vehicles. 
When, in 1825, General Lafayette visits the town, 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 97 

and Governor Parris gives a ball in his honor, at 
his residence on Bridge (now Danforth) Street, — 
the site of which is now covered by the beautiful 
lawn attached to the residence of H. P. Storer, 
Esq., — a storm coming up prevents the attendance 
of a great part of the company invited, because of 
the distance out of town and the scarcity of car- 
riages. The coin in circulation is chiefly Spanish 
dollars, halves, quarters, pistareens, eighths, and 
sixteenths, the latter tv\'o of which are known as 
ninepences and fourpence 'alfpennies. Federal 
money is so little recognized that prices are still 
reckoned in shillings and pence — two-and-six, 
three-and-ninepence, seven-and-sixpence. It is a 
journey of two daj^s, by the accommodation stage, 
to Boston, costing eight to ten dollars. If you go 
by the mail stage you may be bounced through, 
with aching bones, in the hours between two 
o'clock in the morning and ten at night. Or you 
may take a coaster, and perhaps be a week on the 
passage. The old '' Portland Gazette " and the 
" Eastern Arsrus " came out once a week, and the 
town-crier supplies the place of the daily news- 
paper. There are few amusements. Theatri- 
cal performances have been voted down in town 
meeting, and prohibited under heavy penalties ; 
but by 1820 the poor players venture to make an 
occasional appearance, and set up their scenery in 



98 HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 

Union Hall. It is not until 1830 that a theatre is 
built, and it is soon converted into a church. In 
the summer there are excursions by sailing boats 
to the islands, with an occasional capsize and loss 
of life. In the winter merry sleighing parties 
drive out to " Broad's" for a dance and a supper. 
These are merry times, especially if the party is 
snowed up, and compelled to remain over night. 
Flip and punch flow freely, and sobriety is the 
exception rather than the rule. 

Such is " the beautiful town, that is seated by 
the sea." Such are the scenes to which the 
thoughts of the poet go back, in after years, with 
a man's love for the haunts of his childhood. 
Here he recalls the sports of boyhood, and finds 
his ^' lost youth " again. The old town has not 
forgotten him. The city into which it has grown 
delights to honor him. It cherishes the memory 
of the days that were, and would fain recall him 
to their familiar scenes. May he live long to re- 
visit the home of his boyhood, and to enjoy the 
immortal youth which he has made his own. 



LONGFELLOW AS A STUDENT AND PRO- 
FESSOR AT BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 



BY A. S. PACKARD, D. D., BOWDOIX COLLEGE. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was fortunate 
in the inheritance of names honorable in the his- 
tory of the State, and of high repute for talents, 
virtues, and all that constitutes true nobility. A 
school-mate informs us that when he was entering 
his fourteenth year he gave decided indications of 
poetic taste and genius, anonymous pieces from 
his pen, in the " Poet's Corner "of a newspaper of 
this town, having attracted attention. I think he 
and his brother Stephen must have been pupils 
under Mr. Nehemiah Cleaveland, who had grad- 
uated from our college in 1813, and kept a private 
school for boys in Portland in 1816 and 1817, and 
then left the school for a tutorship in the college. 
They were fitted for college, I have no doubt, by 
Master Bezaleel Cushman, preceptor of Portland 
Academy, whose name is honored among teachers 
of that generation. I remember Mr. Cushman 
well, and especially the pleasure of dining with 
him at Hon. Stephen Longfellow's table, — with 



100 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

him, the preceptor of the academy, myself, the 
young assistant of Mr. Nason, principal of Gorham 
Academy, of which Mr. Longfellow was a trustee. 
It was one of the numerous proofs of the court- 
eous and friendly interest that excellent and ad- 
mirable gentleman manifested in young men. 

In September, 1821, Stephen and Henry Wads- 
worth became Freshmen in Bowdoin College ; 
Henry just entering the last half of his fifteenth 
year, an attractive youth, with auburn locks, clear, 
fresh, blooming complexion, and, as might be pre- 
sumed, of well-bred manners and bearing. 

When we think of the distinction that has 
crowned the class of 1825, a teacher may be 
charged with singular lack of discrimination and 
interest in his pupils who is compelled to confess 
how scanty are his particular reminiscences of its 
members; and this for the plain reason that no one 
knew, or even dreamed, it may be, how famous 
some of them were to become. I think it is a 
tradition that Luther — if not he, some renowned 
German teacher — used to doff his hat reverently 
when he entered his school-room. On being asked 
why he did so, " Because," said he, " I see in my 
pupils future burgomasters and syndics of the city." 

Now and then a very trivial circumstance im- 
prints the person of the pupil on the memory, — 
the eye, or some other feature, voice, gait, or 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 101 

some incident of college life. The entrance ex- 
amination of Sergeant Smith Prentiss, of the class 
of 1826, I recall with entire distinctness. He 
came from Gorham, and I had been an assistant 
there ; and when the lad, — for he was scarcely 
more than that, — very lame, supporting his steps 
with a staff, of a fresh, healthful, spirited coun- 
tenance, and offering himself for Junior standing, 
a heavy trial, we thought, took his seat, my sym- 
pathy was awakened at once. I see him with 
perfect distinctness as he sat at the long table 
in a back room of the old chemical laboratory, 
the receptacle of chemicals and minerals for ex- 
amination and analysis, — a droll omnium gath- 
erum it must have seemed to the young candi- 
date; and my feelings led me to open my part 
of the pressure he was to undergo in the Greek of 
two years very gently. I soon found he needed 
no such favor, but that, entirely self-possessed and 
at his ease, he was ready at every point. No 
stretch of fancy would be likely to anticipate that 
the lad before me was to become one of the most 
prominent men of the South at the bar, yet 
more in legislative halls and on the political plat- 
form. 

Were we blind and dull of appreciation that 
we did not forecast, during those four years, two 
lives, one in the front seat of the class-room, and 



102 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

one in the third seat back, which were to leave 
names in the prose and poetry of the age, lasting 
as the language in which their genius found ex- 
pression ? 

I recall the appearance of a few of that class of 
1825, as they sat in the old class-room of Maine 
Hall, — Bradbury, Josiah Stover Little, Hawthorne, 
the Longfellows, Shepley, and others. Why ? I 
cannot say why. It so happened. I cannot testify 
concerning him whose name we, and I may add 
the civilized world, fondly cherish, any more than 
a general statement of his unblemished character 
as a pupil and a true gentleman in all his relations 
to the college and its teachers. It is a college 
tradition that in his Sophomore year, at the annual 
examination of his class, his version of an ode of 
Horace, which fell to him to render, so impressed 
Hon. Benjamin Orr, of the committee of examina- 
tion, that when the new professorship of modern 
languages was established his recollection of that 
specimen of the young Sophomore's taste and 
scholarship led him to propose him for the posi- 
tion. 

Of young Longfellow's standing as a scholar in 
college, one may judge from his assignment at 
Commencement of an English oration, when fewer 
parts of that rank were given than of late years. 
His was the first claim to the poem ; but as the 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 103 

poem had no definite rank, it was thought due to 
him, since his scholarship bore a high mark, that 
he should receive an appointment which placed 
his scholarship beyond question. His English 
oration had for its snbject " Our Native Writers." 
" Chatterton and his Poems " was assio:ned him as 
a subject, and was so published in the Commence- 
ment Order of Exercises, but was subsequently 
changed by a pen. The class poem was assigned 
to Frederic Mellen, who was in reality more than, 
an ordinary college poet. 

I have just said that Longfellow had the first 
claim as the poet of the class. During his college 
life he contributed to the periodicals of the day 
"An April Day," "Autumn," "Hymn of the Mo- 
ravian Nuns," " The Spirit of Poetry," " Woods in 
Winter," and " Sunrise on the Hills," which were 
received with great favor, as early blossoms of a 
spring of peculiar promise ; and still, I think, they 
retain a place in later editions of his maturer pro- 
ductions. Some of them appeared in the " Liter- 
ary Gazette," a Boston publication. The editor 
of that periodical was James G. Carter (Harvard, 
1820), a gentleman of ability, whose name is 
honored among active promoters of popular edu- 
cation of that time. I was spending an evening 
with him in Boston, when he asked me what 
young man in our college sent them so fine po- 



104 HEXRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

etiy. It was Longfellow, then a Junior, I think, 
in college, and I was happy to report of him as 
one whose scholarship and character were quite 
on a level with his poetry. 

Our two most notable literary occasions of the 
college year, aside from the official exhibitions 
and Commencement, were the fall anniversaries of 
the two leading societies, Athenian and Peucin- 
ian, each putting forth its best. Longfellow, in 
November, 1824, the first term of his Senior 
year, pronounced the poem of the Peucinian. 

When Mr. Longfellow left college he began the 
study of law in his father's office ; but he had no 
heart for professional life, and in a year or two 
the position for which he was peculiarly fitted, 
and which he adorned, was opened for him. The 
professorship of modern language, for which 
Madam Bowdoin, some years before, had given 
a thousand dollars as a corner-stone at least for 
its foundation, was established, and he cheerfully 
accepted appointment to the professorship. He 
immediately took passage for Europe, where he 
spent nearly four years in Spain, France, Italy, 
and Germany, preparing himself for the inviting 
sphere now opening before him. In 1829 he as- 
sumed the duties of the office, which he faithfully 
and successfully performed until, with the regret 
and disappointment of his colleagues and the 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 105 

authorities of the college, he accepted a similar 
position at Harvard, as successor of the distin- 
guished Professor Ticknor. 

And now as to the character of his work while 
with us, a few words will suffice. 

He approved himself a teacher who never 
wearied of his work. He won by his gentle 
grace, and commanded respect by his self-respect 
and his respect for his office, never allowing an 
infringement of the decorum of the recitation 
room. The department was a new one, and in 
lack of suitable text-books he prepared a transla- 
tion of a popular French grammar, which went 
through several editions, an Itahan grammar, 
Proverbes Dramatiques, Spanish Tales for the 
class-room, a translation of " Coplas de Jorge 
Manrique," with an essay on the " Moral and 
Devotional Poetry of Spain," — the version highly 
commended by Professor Ticknor in his " History 
of Spanish Literature." 

He also contributed, while at Brunswick, arti- 
cles to the " North American Review," which 
gave him reputation in literary circles. At the 
Commencement of 1832 he delivered the poem 
before the Phi Beta Kappa. 

I have limited myseK to the special sphere of 
remark assiorned me. Of Mr. Lono-fellow's social 
life I have said nothing. It began with us, when 



106 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

he carried to Brunswick, as his bride, one of the 
daughters of Portland, and opened a home of 
taste, refinement, and graceful hospitality, which 
he left for another in a wider sphere, and at a 
centre of cherished historical associations, and 
which has given a welcome to his fellow country- 
men of the world of letters. 



THE GENIUS OF LONGFELLOW. 

BY IIOX. GEORGE F. TALBOT, PORTLAND. 

Emeeson" licas said, " All that we call sacred 
history attests that the birth of a poet is the prin- 
cipal event in chronology." Of the famous bards 
of our time, whose songs have cheered and in- 
spired the English-speaking race, we must assign 
to the illustrious poet whose birthday we com- 
memorate the nearest place to the popular lieart. 
It is fitting that this 

" Beautiful town 
That is seated by the sea," 

where he confesses, 

" My lieart goes back to wander there, 
And among the dreams of the days that were, 
I find my lost youth again," 

should reciprocate by some expression of its admi- 
ration and gratitude the affectionate sentiments he 
has ever cherished towards it. It is fitting that 
this society, whose office it is with reverent piety 
to study and perpetuate the memory of whatever 
has been worthily acted or eloquently and truth- 
fully spoken among those whose characters or pub- 



108 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

lie services have done honor to our State, should 
celebrate the genius of a poet whose fame has out- 
grown the limits of the State wherein it had its 
birth, and the great country which it has honored. 
In assigning to Longfellow a popularity preemi- 
nent among his fellows in the poetic art, I do not 
forget the delight with which, for a whole genera- 
tion, the American people have read the exquisite 
versification and tender and lofty sentiment that 
especially characterize the earlier poems of Ten- 
nyson. But while, in the growing depth of his 
thinking, the great English lyrist has more and 
more dissociated his muse from those sentiments 
which are the common experiences of mankind, 
he has at the same time, in the severer tastes of 
age, grown contemptuous of the ornaments of 
style, sobered to homely plainness of speech the 
inspirations that once burst forth in rhythmic mu- 
sic, and studied only to reproduce the naked sim- 
plicity and dramatic reality of history. Then, 
too, Tennyson's popularity is not a just measure 
of his merit, because a full consciousness of his 
own powers, and a sensitiveness characterizing 
the irritable race of poets, has hedged him about 
with a well-respected hauteur, that shuts out alike 
genial sympathy and serviceable criticism, while it 
preserves a seclusion as necessary to his effective 
work as it is grateful to his sensitive feelings. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 109 

On the other hand, Longfellow has made it the 
inviolable maxim of his art that, as poetry is noble 
sentiment expressed in beautiful language, fault- 
lessness of expression is always a condition of high 
excellence. Carlyle has strenuously advised men 
who would instruct their age to speak out in plain 
prose what they have to say, or otherwise hold 
their peace. The capacity of language to be the 
vehicle of the profoundest philosophy, the noblest 
sentiment, the most delicate humor, Mr. Carlyle 
has himself successfully exemplified. But if, in 
spite of his invidious warning, an inspired writer 
chooses poetry as his medium of expression, he 
owes it to an art whose laws have been rigidly 
imposed by its great masters to conform to those 
laws. This requirement Mr. Longfellow has ever 
respected. Besides this, a thoroughly genial and 
friendly nature has kept him accessible to all 
other minds, and hospitable and courteous to all 
persons attracted by his genius, no matter in how 
homely or intrusive a form this admiration has 
been expressed. Thus, while in Tennyson's song 
we detect a tone which expresses the daintiness of 
his disdain for less exquisitely endowed natures, 
Longfellow invites the confidence of narrower and 
limited minds by the warmth of his human sympa- 
thies, and by his tender appreciation of the com- 
mon joys and sorrows of universal life. 



110 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Sixty years is a long period to devote to one 
pursuit. Few men are so happy as Longfellow 
was in finding in their youth the precise work 
they can best accomplish, and the necessary equip- 
ment to undertake it. In his grave and sad salu- 
tatory, delivered at Bowdoin on the fiftieth anni- 
versary of his graduation, he gave this counsel to 
the young scholars, listening spell-bound by the 
charm of his verse and the venerable beauty of 
his presence : — 

" Study yourselves ; and most of all note well 
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel." 

It told the story of his own splendid success. In 
his very boyhood, among scenes that have for 
us the charm of home, Nature revealed herself to 
his sight and soul in the beauty of sea and sky, 
cliff and forest, and he felt that whatever aims or 
ambitions were open to other men, for him there 
was the task to interpret those mysterious voices 
of the night and day dreams of a dawning fancy 
that had been imparted to him ; 

" And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, . . . 
Turn them to shapes, and give to airy nothing ; 
A local habitation and a name." 

He could say as Wordsworth nobly said of him- 
self, — 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. Ill 

" On man, on nature, and on human life, 
Musing in solitude, I oft perceive 
Fair trains of imagery before me rise 
Accompanied by feelings of delight, 
Pure, or with no uupleasing sadness mixed." 

For US a new charm must come into these famil- 
iar scenes that confront our daily sight, — the 
graceful spires of churches, the quaint red tower 
of the Observatory, rising from the clustering 
trees that mark the sweep of the closely-built 
ridge of the peninsula, the great sea thrusting its 
shining fingers among the jutting headlands and 
Avooded islands, the magnificent fringe of Deer- 
ing's Oaks, and the dusky purple of the White 
Mountains and the Oxford hills, — when we re- 
member that it was pictures like these that awoke 
in our poet's young mind the consciousness of his 
powers and assigned to him the work of his life. 
Thus he tells this early experience : — 

" And dreams of that which cannot die, 

Bright visions, came to me, 
As lapped in thought I used to lie, 
And gaze into the summer sky. 
Where the sailing clouds went by. 

Like ships upon the sea ; 

" Dreams that the soul of youth engage 
Ere Fancy has been quelled ; 
Old legends of the monkish page, 
Traditions of the saint and sage, 



112 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Tales that have tlie rime of age, 
And chrouicles of Eld. 

" And, loving still these quaint old themes. 

Even in the city's throng 
I feel the freshness of the streams, 
That, crossed by shades and sunny gleams, 
"Water the green land of dreams, 

The holy land of song." 

It is easy to see now, and thus to account for 
the perfection and completeness of his work, that 
all his studies, aU the employments and incidents 
of his life, — more than this, the friendships and 
domestic joys and sorrows which have been his 
experience, — contributed to strengthen the pow- 
ers of his imagination, to perfect the art of his 
expression, and to furnish the materials for the 
varied music of his verse. 

Mr. Longfellow became a poet by the natural 
and delicate sensitiveness of his mind to whatever 
is picturesque in nature, complete in art, pathetic 
in incident, or romantic in history. To his rare 
perception 

'• "Wondrous truths, and manifest as wondrous, 
God hath written in those stars above ; 
But not less in the bright flowerets under us 
Stands the revelation of his love." 

" Ai)d the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, 
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 113 

Of the self-same, universal being, 

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart." 

In his youth and in the poems of that period 
this susceptibiUty to the beauty of things, and to 
the lessons which they teach the well-ordered and 
docile mind, is particularly manifest. He said 
then, — 

" Oh what a glory cloth this world put on 
For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth 
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
On duties well performed, and days well spent ! " 

And in another early poem this was the tonic 
cheerfulness he found in communion with Nature : 

" If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep 
Thy heart fi'om fainting and thy soul from sleep, 
Go to the woods and hills ! No tears 
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears." 

Emerson says, '' The great majority of men 
seem to be minors, who have not yet come into 
possession of their own, or mutes, who cannot re- 
port the conversation they have had with Nature. 
There is some obstruction or some excess of 
phlegm in our constitution, which does not suffer 
them to yield their due effect. Too feeble fall the 
impressions of nature on us to make us artists. 
The poet is the person in whom the powers are 
in balance, the man without impediment, who sees 
and handles that which others dream of, trav- 

8 



114 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

erses the whole sccale of experience, and is repre- 
sentative of man in virtue of being the largest 
power to receive and to impart." 

For us, the great majority, obstructed in faculty 
and feebly responsive to the imjjressions of nature, 
Longfellow has done this needed office. He sees 
what we dream, traverses the range of our experi- 
ence, and by his larger power to receive and im- 
part has become representative of all our finer 
sentiments. But, in saying this, we must dis- 
criminate between greater and less. There are 
rano;es of sublime vision from which he has sedu- 
lously kept himself aloof, depths of philosophic 
speculation into which his thoroughly devout 
sj)irit has never entered, holy ground of inspira- 
tion into which, even with unshodden feet, he has 
not presumed to walk. Let him ever describe his 
own genius, although he will do it not only tune- 
fully, but w^ith a too modest self -depreciation. In 
the " Spanish Student," a drama full of the most 
picturesque situations, gushing with the enthu- 
siasm of youthful feeling and enlivened with some 
of the sweetest songs in the English language, he 
thus depicts the poetic work he has done : — 

" All the means of action — 
The shapeless masses, the materials — 
Lie everywhere about us. What we need 
Is the celestial fire to change the flint 
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear. 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 115 

That fire is genius ! The rude peasant sits 

At evening in his smoky cot, and draws 

With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall. 

The son of genius comes, foot-sore with travel, 

And begs a shelter from the inclement night. 

He takes the charcoal from the peasant's hand, 

And, by the magic of his touch at once 

Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine, 

And, in the ej'es of the astonished clown, 

It gleams a diamond ! Even thus transformed, 

Eude popular traditions and old tales 

Shine as immortal poems, at the touch 

Of some poor, houseless, homeless, wandering bard. 

Who had but a night's lodging for his pains." 

It was not only a confession of his tastes, but a 
too modest assignment of his own rank, when, 
after achievements that had made him famous 
throughout the Avorld, he thus sang : — 
" Come, read to me some poem, 

Some simple and heart-felt lay, 

That shall soothe this restless feeling, 

And banish the thoughts of day. 

" Not from the grand old masters, 
Not from the bards sublime, 
Whose distant footsteps echo 
Through the corridors of Time. 

" For, like strains of martial music. 
Their mighty thoughts suggest 
Life's endless toil and endeavor ; 
And to-night I long for rest. 



116 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Read from some humbler poet, 

Whose songs gushed from his heart, 
As showers from the clouds of summer, 
Or tears from the eyelids start." 

In a sense that is not so true of any other poet 
who has written in the Eno-hsh L^no-uagce, Mr. 
Longfellow is the poet of the people. No creative 
artist ever had a larger and more immediate re- 
ward for his completed work. He sang for the men 
and women — yes, and for the children — of his 
country and his time ; sang with a cultivated and 
exquisite appreciation of their tastes, their feel- 
ings, their ideals ; sang not of the eccentric expe- 
riences, the insatiable ambitions, the tragic heart- 
breakings, of heroic souls, aloof from their kind, 
but of the daily cares, the simple satisfactions, and 
the common fates of men as men, of the hard- 
ships of toil, of the misery of defeated endeavor, 
of the sombre weariness of backward-looking age, 
and of the pathos of death. Depicting experi- 
ences so universal, appealing to sentiments so 
characteristic of humanity, the response of the 
people he has addressed has been immediate, uni- 
versal, and hearty. He has not had to wait for 
appreciation, nor to appeal to time to bring an- 
other agre into more cono-enial relations with his 
feelings. Every chord he has struck has given 
quick and harmonious echoes. Now for many 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 117 

years no poem of liis, however brief, has been 
pubhshecl which universal journahsm did not take 
note of as a conspicuous event of current history. 
"What he sends to the hands of the printer on 
one day on the next is a household word by a 
thousand firesides, and its sweet melodies are 
ringing among the hallowed voices of as many 
homes. There is a lyric sweetness, a tender, in- 
telligible sentiment so accordant with the common 
experience of all lives, in all that he has written, 
that no elocutionist has been required to render 
its simple melody, no philosophic critic to mediate 
between its subtle meaning and the popular intel- 
liii-ence. 

o 

More than any other of our poets we have 
waited for him to celebrate and fitly interpret the 
great events in our national history. Looking 
through the dull annals of a people in primitive 
combat with the hard conditions of nature, with 
an absorbed and patient thrift building, in the 
wilderness of a new world, homes into which in a 
later generation might come the culture and re- 
finement which continuous prosperity brings, he 
has found whatever there is in their history or 
their legends that is heroic, or tragic, or capable 
of an ethical lesson, and touched it in the telling 
with the glory of his own genius. How noble and 
pathetic was the tribute he paid to his three 



118 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

friends, Felton, Agassiz, and Sumner ! How sweet 
to a great poet's heart must be such dehcate and 
discrhnmating praises as he has bestowed upon 
Tennyson and Whittier, the great brothers of his 
art ! Of the former he sings, — 

" Not of the howling dervishes of soug, 
Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, 
Art thou, sweet historian of the heart." 

And the lofty piety of the latter commands this 

tribute : — 

" thou, whose daily life anticipates 
The life to come, and in whose thought and word 
The spiritual world preponderates. 
Hermit of Amesbury ! thou, too, hast heard 
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates, 
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred ! " 

The Romans had one word to signify the poet 
and the prophet, and all the older prophecy of the 
world is poetry. The converse also is true, for 
since poetry is the daily newspaper and court 
journal of the ideal world, it is the prediction of 
all that is yet to become fact and history. We 
did not heed the vaticination this prophet uttered, 
but uttered too late to avert the catastrophe he 
foreshadowed : — 

" There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, 

Sborn of his strength and bound in bonds of steel, 
"Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, 
And shake the pillars of this Commonweal." 



• SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 119 

How cheering was his note in the agony of our 
struggle for national life ! — 

" Ho, brave land ! with hearts like these 
Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
Shall be one again, 
And without a seam ! " 

Emerson says, again, '' The writer, like the 
priest, must be exempted from secular labor ; his 
work needs a frolic health ; he must be at the 
top of his condition." We have had eminent and 
successful poets, who have been also historians, 
journalists, teachers, preachers, critics, metaphy- 
sicians, reformers, diplomats, and bankers, giving 
to the jealous muse a divided allegiance. It has 
been the good fortune of Longfellow that he has 
been kept, wdth no distracting employments, in 
studies that fed the fire of his poetic passion with 
new material, and at the top of a sound and 
healthy condition of productive labor. The only 
department of science in which he has been a 
successful teacher is the science of language and 
of the deft use of winged words, the myriad-toned 
instrument of poesy. Especially has his mastery 
of the languages, French, German, Italian, and 
Spanish, put within his reach those treasures of 
romantic story, that weird blending of history and 
legend in which the earlier chronicles, poems, 
ballads, and folk-lore of Europe abound, which 



120 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

have a charm for us, thoroughly modern and 
secular as we are, that they have not for any other 
people. 

Mr. Longfellow has that vivid imagination which 
sees as realities its own illusions. He meets an- 
other requirement of our great master of the po- 
etic art : " He believes in his poetry. He par- 
takes of the feast he spreads, and kindles and 
amuses himself with that which amuses us." 
Whole poems of his are devoted to the delineation 
of these romantic legends of our ancestors across 
the sea, while there is scarcely a song that is not 
enlivened and enriched by some legendary allu- 
sion, some sparkling jewel picked up by him in 
his loving walks among the graves and monu- 
ments of knights and saints, along the corridors of 
ruined abbeys, the dry moats of ivy-crowned cas- 
tles, and the dim shadows under the arches of vast 
cathedrals. Indeed, it has been charged that he 
has so deeply imbibed the spirit of this antique 
and foreiorn romance as to be no lono;er either 
modern or national in his spirit or method. When 
we remember with what a pathetic tenderness he 
has recreated for us our own legend of the public 
tragedy of a pious and rural people driven into 
perpetual exile, a tragedy saddened by the private 
grief of a devoted and loving maiden enduring the 
exile of her race and her own deeper loss in a 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 121 

li023eless search for her betrothed lover, and find- 
ing her trysting-place only in old age, by the bed- 
side of pestilence ; when we read the song of Hia- 
watha, and see with what artistic faithfulness he 
has wrought into verse, the very wildness of which 
has in it a sound of the woods, those poetic ideas 
which have haunted the minds of all sensitive per- 
sons in connection with the customs, costumes, 
character, and fortunes of the strange race of abo- 
rigines, whom our race has supplanted on this 
continent, we can see that Mr. Longfellow is no 
less an American poet because so much of his 
inspiration came as a whiff of the Old World over, 
the sea. This native material he has worked so 
well is only so much less abundant. 

Among the characteristic excellences of Mr. 
Longfellow as a poet, his fidelity to the estab- 
lished canons of versification I have already 
spoken of. I know the liberties great masters of 
thought may take and have taken with expres- 
sion. I know the modern taste that considers 
conformity to the regularity of measurement and 
the necessity of rhyme mere mechanical arts, that 
degrade and enslave the mind. I am aware that 
Emerson, himself among the order of great poets, 
and lacking general appreciation by his lawless- 
ness in conforming to the established rules of ex- 
pression, has said, — " Not metres, but a metre- 



122 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

making argument makes a poem, a thought so 
passionate and ahve that, like the spirit of a plant 
or an animal, it has an architecture oE its own, 
and adorns Nature with a new thing." I know 
the aesthetic craze that has ennobled the howling 
dervishes of song. I know the fashion that insists 
that the metreless epigrams of Walt Whitman 
are noblest poetry, — epigrams wherein the terse 
sententiousness of the proverb gives place to a 
stately grandiloquence, which the moment the 
music of the verse ceases becomes ridiculous. 
When on the stage the manager wishes to insure 
that a tender and pathetic passage of the play 
shall not be laughed at, he introduces an accom- 
paniment of solemn music to lift his auditors into 
the required mood. It is an effect the j)oet can- 
not quite disdain. 

But, notwithstanding these eccentricities of taste, 
Emerson himself confessed that he " recalled every 
good poem by its rhythm, and detected an unskill- 
ful writer by the poverty of his chimes." That 
art cannot be a mere conventional or childish one 
which in all lano;uao;es has charmed the human 
ear and stirred in the human soul the noblest en- 
thusiasms and the most heroic actions; nor can 
that be a tawdry rhetorical trick, unfit to hamper 
the wings of genius, which Homer and Dante, 
Milton and Goethe, found to be such furtherance 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 123 

to the effectiveness and impressiveness of their 
grand speech. 

Not a little of his fame Mr. Longfellow owes to 
the fact that he is a great artist in the construc- 
tion of rhythm and rhyme. Kindred to his sus- 
ceptibility to poetic influences, the product of a 
fervid and impressible imagination, there is in him 
a delicate sensitiveness to the music of language. 
I know of no writer, whose verse lias this relish of 
melody and music, who has produced by the same 
kind of talent that makes a great singer, as it 
were by sleight of tongue, those effects of meas- 
ured sequences of sounds, which less happily en- 
dowed writers have inadequately achieved by the 
studied arrangement of dactyls and spondees, all 
scanning correctly, but wdiich somehow will never 
sing themselves. 

There are lyrical effects produced on the ear 
by some of his stanzas, wherein the rhymes and 
grand flow of the rhythm are as complete as in 
Milton's Lycidas, while the structure of the verse 
is better balanced and more symmetrical. Only 
Tennyson's earlier odes have the same delicate 
and facile grace. Take this specimen from the 
"Quadroon Girl:" — 

" The Slaver in the broad higoon 
Lay moored with idle sail ; 
He waited for the rising moon, 
And for the evening gale. 



124 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Under the shore his boat was tied, 
And all her listless crew 
Watched the gray alligator slide 
Into the still bayou." 

Or this, from the " Five of Drift- Wood : " — 

" The windows, rattling in their frames. 
The ocean, roaring up the beach. 
The gusty blast, the bickering flames, 
All mingled vaguely in our speech." 

But why select from volumes that lie on every 
table, from songs read by the children of all 
English-speaking people, when, from the earliest 
products of glowing youth to the faithfully 
wrought creations of an age that gives no token 
of decay, all that he has written form one grand 
diapason of harmony, rich in the blending of 
varied melodies, and show with what a master's 
hand 

" He touched the tender stops of various quills 
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay " ? 

To make this inadequate sketch of the genius of 
Longfellow less incomplete, let me in fine speak 
of the elevation, purity, and lofty piety of all that 
he has written, wherein can be found " no line 
which, dying, he could wish to blot." Not in the 
slightest degree has he enlarged the license the 
generous world always permits to genius to excite 
a prurient taste or corrupt the heart by the delin- 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 125 

eation of unregulated passions, reveling in the 
glories of art or in the beauties of an unconven- 
tional society; embosomed in primitive nature, and 
amenable only to its laws. The loves of his he- 
roes and heroines have been the pure domestic 
loves, out of which have grown the sanctities of 
home, the pieties of the household, the orderly 
social life of man. He has been the preacher of 
faith in the midst of skepticism and doubt, of hope 
and trust when it had become a fashion of the 
cultured world to regret the fortune of man and 
criticise the appointments of nature. For the 
manifest evils of life, brought to his susceptible 
heart by a sympathetic nature, and to his own ex- 
perience by terrible visitations of sorrow, to vary 
the fortunes of a favored and happy life, his uni- 
form lesson has been patience. 

♦ 
" Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 

Not from the ground arise, 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 
Assume this dark disguise. " 

" Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ;i 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fall, 

Some days must be dark and dreary." 

In religion and all religions he has not only 
recognized with a poet's relish all that was pict- 



126 HENRY V/ADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 

uresqiie in the grand cathedral, the chanted 
prayers by candle-light, the dirges sung by the 
church over dead heroes, the lonely recluse in his 
cell meditating on death and God, the martyr to 
his faith sending his soul to heaven upon the 
sjDires of flame that is consuming his flesh, but he 
has recognized as well the fundamental truth and 
power that has been exercised in all religions to 
raise the souls of men from the fears, the infirmi- 
ties, and the sins that beset the mortal life to 
peace, self-renunciation, and submission to the 
Supreme order of the universe ; while the catholic- 
ity of his faith he has himself well expressed in 
this his " Law of Life : " — 

" Live I, so live I, 

To my Lord heartily, 
To my Prince faithfully, 

To my neighbor honestly ; 
Die I, so die L" 

Grateful for the service his long and industrious 
life has enabled him to do for his country and his 
age, we crown with our praise his noble work, and 
rejoice in the serenity and peace which a well-or- 
dered mind can gather in age from the recollection 
of a well-spent life. 



LETTER FROM HON. J. W. BRADBURY. 

WASniNGTOy, Fehruarij 25, 1882. 

Deae Sie, — I sincerely regret that I cannot be with 
you at the meeting of the Society in honor of our dis- 
tinguished native author, and that I have not the op- 
portunity, in the midst of my occupations on my journey 
to the South, to say what I would like to have said on 
this interesting occasion. 

We are all proud to recognize the fact that Longfellow 
has won a place in history, — that his name is enrolled 
with the names of those who were not born to die ; and 
it is peculiarly appropriate that a society devoted to 
historic research should avail itself of an occasion like 
the present, in the city of his birth,' to do honor to one 
who has reflected so much honor not onl}^ upon his native 
land, but also upon the republic of letters throughout 
the world. 

Let us send him our congratulations that he is spared 
by a kind Providence to receive on the seventy-fifth 
anniversary of his birth the testimonials of the love and 
veneration in which he is held by hosts of friends in the 
Old World and the New. 

I first knew Longfellow when I entered as a Sophomore 
in the class of which he was a member in 1822 ; and I like 
to think of him as I then knew him. His slight, erect 
figure, delicate complexion, and intelligent expression of 



128 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

countenance come back to me indelibly associated with 
Lis name. 

He was always a gentleman in his deportment, and a 
model in his character and habits. For a year or more 
we had our rooms out of college and in the same vicinity, 
and I consequently saw much more of him than of many 
others of our class. I recollect that at our Junior exhi- 
bition a discussion upon the respective claims of the two 
races of men to this continent was assigned to Longfellow 
and myself. He had the character of King Philip, and 
I of Miles Standish. He maintained that the continent 
was given by the Great Spirit to the Indians, and that 
the English were wrongful intruders. My reply, as 
nearly as I can recall it, was that the aborigines were 
claiming more than their equal share of the earth, and 
that the Great Spirit never intended that so few in 
number should hold the whole continent for hunting- 
grounds, and that we had a right to a share of it to 
improve and cultivate. Whether this occurrence had 
anything to do in suggesting the subject for one of his 
admirable poems or not, one thing is certain, that he 
subsequently made a great deal more of Miles Standish 
than I did on that occasion. 

As a scholar Longfellow always maintained a high 
rank in a class that contained such names as Hawthorne, 
Little, Cilley, Cheever, Abbott, and others. Although 
he was supposed to be somewhat devoted to the Muses, 
he never came to the recitation room unprepared with 
his lessons. Hawthorne, on the contrary, shy and retiring 
in his habits, always appeared to be so much absorbed 
in his own thoughts, or occupied with one or the other of 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 129 

liis special friends, Franklin Pierce or Horatio Bridge, 
that he paid little attention to preparation for the reci- 
tation room, and to us superficial observers he did not 
give much promise that he was to place himself in the 
front rank of the best writers in the English language. 
Cilley was a young man of great promise, and possessed 
qualities that would have made him eminent in civil and 
military life, had he not been prematurely cut off at the 
commencement of his career. 

At Commencement Longfellow had one of the three 
English orations assigned to the class, Josiah S. Little, 
from Portland, having the valedictory, which was first in 
rank. At that time, and for more than thirty years after- 
wards, the English orations outranked the Latin in old 
Bowdoin. I allude to this fact to correct an error that 
occurred in a biographical notice of our worthy class- 
mate, Benson, in giving him a rank he would never have 
claimed for himself, because he had the Latin salutatory 
at Commencement. 

I find that I must now close abruptly without adding 
anything moi;e, or I shall fail to mail this letter of excuse 
in season to reach you. Please make my apology to the 
Society for failing to furnish them with such a letter as 
they ought to have received, and believe me, yours, 

J. W. Bradbuey. 

H. W. Bryant, Esq., Secy M. H. S, 



LETTER FROM HON. ISRAEL WASHBURN, JR. 

EuEEKA Springs, Aek., February 9, 1882. 

My dear Mr. Bryant, — I received last evening 
your letter of the 3d instant, from which I am happy to 
learn that the Maine Historical Society will hold on the 
27th instant, being the anniversary of the birth of the 
poet Longfellow, a meeting for the purpose of testifying 
tlieir appreciation of the genius, character, and works of 
the most widely known and illustrious of all the natives 
of our State. 

I deeply regret that I cannot be present on that occa- 
sion to take the part in its exercises which your kind- 
ness has suggested ; but I am here in attendance on an 
invahd brother, who has come to these waters to repair, 
if it may be, his shattered health. I see no prospect of 
being able to leave him in season to be present at this 
meeting. 

Maine is exceptionally rich, I think, in great and 
celebrated names, from the early provincial clays, when 
the Americans first knighted by the crown of Great 
Britain were those natives of Maine, — Sir William 
Phips, a Governor of Massachusetts, and Sir William 
Pepperell, the hero of Louisburg, — to the present time. 
Among these memorable men may be mentioned those 
heroes upon land and sea, the Prebles ; those states- 
men of the first quarter of the present century, Rufus, 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 13 1 

William, and Cyrus King ; and the statesmen of a later 
period, George Evans, a Senator of the United States 
when the Senate was made august by such men as 
Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, to the greatest of whom 
he was felt by his associates to be hardly second ; and 
William Pitt Fessenden, also a Senator, who in the most 
exciting debate of modern times convinced his oppo- 
nents that the Senate contained no member who wielded 
a more dangerous or more polished bhide. Of authors 
and men of letters, the names of Nathaniel P. Willis, 
John Neal, Seba Smith, — the original Jack Downing, — 
Henry B. Smith, and Nathaniel Deering will not be soon 
forgotten. While, of life-time residents, or ' of those 
who have lived long: enough with us to take on local 
shape and complexion, or who have consecrated our soil 
like General Knox, by leaving their ashes to be mingled 
with it, we point proudly to Knox ; to Edward Payson, 
the theologian and preacher, whose fame has extended to 
two hemispheres ; and to Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose 
boyhood was passed on the shores of Lake Sebago, and 
whose later youth was occupied by his college course at 
Brunswick, where he was the contemporary of Long- 
fellow. 

But among all these names, and all other names, we 
shall not, nor will posterity, hesitate to assign tlie 
supreme place which will make our State to be longest 
remembered, to the poet whose works, genius, and life 
you will meet to recognize and honor. 

You speak of a probable paper by Mr. Goold on Gen- 
eral Wadsworth, the maternal grandfather of the poet, 
and on such an occasion his father will not be forgotten. 



132 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

You know that he was one of the foremost men of the 
State in his day, a member of Congress, a learned lawyer, 
an eloquent advocate, known by his contemporaries as 
the " orator of the silver tongue," and particularly as one 

"Who bore without abuse 
The grand old name of gentleman." 

To this Society the interest and enjoyment of the 
occasion will be enhanced by the knowledge that the 
poet has never lost his love for his native State, and that 
he continues to take a lively interest in her people, her 
history, her welfare, and her honor. 
Very truly yours, 

Israel Washburn, Je. 
H. W. Bryant, Esq., Sec. M. H. S. 

The following poem by Mr. Washburn accom- 
panied this letter : — 

TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 

Lines suggested hy his poem " My Lost Youth." 

They err who say the poet dies, 

Or suffers foul eclipse ; 
Old age is never in his eyes, 

Nor palsy on his lips. 

Nature and love and truth and faith 

Know no black biting frost ; 
The poet feels no bated breath, 

His youth is never lost. 

I. W., Jr. 



TRIBUTE FROM HON. JOSEPH WILLIAMSON. 

Leigh Hunt pleasantly says, " I cannot pass through 
Westminster, ■without thinking of Milton ; or the Bor- 
ough, without thinking of Chaucer or Shakespeare ; or 
Gray's Inn, without calling Bacon to mind; or Blooms- 
bury Square, without Steele and Aikenside." A similar 
impressiveness attaches to any locality consecrated by 
the genius of him whose birthday we are now cele- 
brating. Not to go beyond his native State, who can 
approach this " beautiful town, that is seated by the 
sea," and look upon "the shadows of Deering's Woods," 
or wander among the pines of Brunswick, "that mur- 
mur in low monotone," without feeling that the magic 
pen of the poet has imparted to them an interest which 
they possessed not before ? 

Assured that the increase of years will give a value to 
every object and place with which Longfellow has been 
associated, I beg to present to the Society some memorials 
of his college life : a view of the halls of Bowdoin, " in 
whose seclusion and repose" his fame was born, and a 
catalogue of the institution, published sixty years ago 
this month, in which his name appears as an humble 
Freshman. 

There is a story that at some Sunday-school exhibi- 
tion the children being asked, " What is the best book in 
the world, next to the Bible," enthusiasticall}^ replied. 



134 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Longfellow's poems." The expression of popular judg- 
ment finds a ready response among many persons of all 
ages : not only witli those who delight in his numerous 
short poems, but with those who dwell upon the exquisite 
descriptions of Evangeline, or who enjoy the marvelous 
translation of the " Divine Comedy." He has touched 
nothing which he has not adorned. While immortal- 
izing scenes in his own country, he has gathered green 
wreaths of fame from the mountains of Switzerland and 
the valleys of the Rhine ; and painting with Homeric 
melody the homely features of Acadian life, he has ren- 
dered classic the hospitable shores and primeval forests 
of Nova Scotia. Who has given to the world so many 
lines of poetic beauty and refined tenderness of feeling, 
and yet with such simplicity of style that they have 
become as familiar as household words ? Into how 
many saddened hearts have they not proved consolation ? 
How many mourning eyes have not looked up with a 
brightening hope from the pages in which he has written 
such hymns of resignation ? " It is pleasant to re- 
member," says a recent writer, " that in all the variety 
of subjects, events, and emotions that Mr. Longfellow 
has treated with the poet's grace and art there is not 
one mean sentiment or base word. Nobody has been 
misled by him into idleness, or license, or low pleasure ; 
no one has had his mind debased by any verse that 
Mr. Longfellow ever wrote." There is 

" Not one immoral, one corrupted thought, 
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot." 
His great influence has always been for good ; he has 
promoted health of mind and spirit, and has labored in 



SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY. 135 

his serene way for the well-being and well-doing of his 
race. 

" Some suck up poison from a sorrow's core, 
As naught but night-shade grew upon earth's ground ; 
Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and the more 
Fate tried liis bastions, she but found a door 
Leadins to sweeter mauliood and more sound." 

The world offers no record of a poet's life and work 
lovelier than that of Mr. Longfellow. 

" Blessings be with him, and eternal praise, 
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares ; 
The poets who on earth have made us heirs 
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays." 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY AT ITS 
SPRING MEETING. 

PORTLAND, MAY 25, 1882. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY AT ITS 
SPRING MEETING. 



At the meeting of the Maine Historical Society, 
held in Portland, May 25, 1882, George F. Tal- 
bot, Esq., presented the following resolutions com- 
memorative of the poet Longfellow, which were 
adopted and ordered to be recorded : — 

Resolved^ That the Maine Historical Society, honored 
in counting among its members the ilkistrious poet, 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, lately deceased, desire to 
join their fellow countrymen everywhere in paying their 
tribute of gratitude and admiration for those productions 
of his genius which have made his name immortal. 

Resolved^ That while death has removed from associa- 
tion with living men his revered presence, and, so far as 
can be seen, has arrested that assiduous labor which has 
so enriched the pages of permanent literature, it has ex- 
tended his fame, and brought to millions who had not 
known him an appreciation of the nobility of his nature 
and the purity of his life. 

Resolved, That the society whose office it is to cherish 
the memory of the men of Maine who in literature. 



140 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

science, politics, war, business enterprise, and the inven- 
tive arts have shed lustre upon our history, acknowledge 
the indebtedness of our citizens to Longfellow for the 
honor his long and brilliant career in the highest depart- 
ments of creative art has conferred upon our country, and 
especially upon our State that gave him birth. 

Itesolved, That the Secretary be requested to com- 
municate, with a copy of these resolutions, the respectful 
sympathy of this society to the family of the distin- 
guished deceased. 

The following communication was received from 
the Hon. James W. Bradbury, the President of 
the Society, and read by the Secretary : — 

Since the meetino; of the Maine Historical So- 
ciety on the 27th of last February, in honor of 
Longfellow, that great poet has ceased to live on 
earth except in history and in the hearts of the 
lovers of pure literature throughout the world. 

It was appropriate that this society, of which he 
was a member, should hold that meeting. It was 
the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth. He was 
invited to attend, but was compelled by ill health 
to decline the invitation in one of the last letters 
he probably ever wrote. It was in the city in 
which he was born and reared and prepared for 
college. It was in the State in whose oldest col- 
lege he received his collegiate education, — the 
State of which his ancestors were distinguished 



TN MEMORIAM. 141 

citizens, in wliicli his parents were born and lived 
and died. By ancestry, by birtli, by education, 
he belongs to Maine. She can justly boast that 
she has given to the world the most illustrious 
poet of the age. Genius consecrates the place of 
its nativity. Seven cities contended for the honor 
of having been the birthplace of Homer after he 
was dead, who while living was allowed to wander 
in poverty through their streets. It would have 
been a reproach to the Historical Society of the 
State to have passed such an occasion unnoticed. 

The services of that meeting were appropriate 
and interesting, and I deeply regretted my in- 
ability to be present. Everything that has rela- 
tion to a historical personage, and especially to 
one who has secured such a hold upon the heart 
of the public as Longfellow, becomes a matter of 
general interest. I was exceedingly gratified by 
the perusal of the papers read on that occasion. 
The introductory address by Judge Barrows, the 
early reminiscences by Professor Packard, the his- 
tory of the Longfellow family by the Rev. H. S. 
Burrage, the history of the Wadsworth family, 
the poet's maternal ancestors, by the Hon. Wil- 
liam Goold, the history of Portland in his early 
days by Edward H. Elwell, and the elaborate 
paper upon his writings by Mr. Talbot, are all 
worthy of preservation and publication. 



142 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

I have been requested to give some account of 
my early recollections of Longfellow. I can add 
very little to what I communicated to the Society 
on a former occasion. 

I met him for the first time in the autumn of 
1822, when I entered as Sophomore the class of 
which he was a member. As we both had our 
rooms out of college and in the same vicinity, we 
were often together in passing to and from the 
recitation room, and became well acquainted. He 
was genial, sociable, and agreeable, and always a 
gentleman in his deportment. Not meditative and 
shy, like his subsequently distinguished classmate 
Hawthorne, he was uniformly cheerful. He had 
a happy temperament, free from all envy and 
every corroding passion or vice. 

In personal appearance, according to my present 
recollection of him as I recall the scenes of those 
early days, his figure was slight and erect ; his 
complexion light and delicate as a maiden's, with 
a slight bloom upon the cheek; his nose rather 
prominent ; his eyes clear and blue ; and his well- 
formed head covered with a profusion of light 
brown hair, waving loosely in the same manner 
as the gray locks of age. I have seen a portrait 
in his parlor in Cambridge that gives a good idea 
of him in his early life as I remember him. 

While he was understood in college to be a gen- 



IN ME MORI AM. 143 

eral reader, and more especially devoted to the 
Muses, he never allowed himself to come to the 
recitation room without thorough preparation. I 
have some knoAvledge that he found more diffi- 
culty in mastering the hard problems in the higher 
branches of mathematics than he did in any of 
his other studies ; but his purpose was never to 
fail. His class was one in which there was a laro-e 
amount of ambition and an intense struo:Q;le for 

do 

rank in scholarship. In this class, Longfellow 
stood justly amongst the first. At Commencement 
he w\as assigned one of the three English orations ; 
the valedictory, being the highest in rank, was 
received by his older and able scholarly classmate, 
Little. Gorham Deane, a young man of the most 
remarkable metaphysical powers I have ever 
known for one of his age, died before the Com- 
mencement. I have recently seen a letter from 
President Allen to his father, written after his 
death, saying that he ranked second in his class. 

Li that small recitation room we had Lonii-fel- 
low and Hawthorne and Cilley and Little and 
Abbott and Cheever sitting side by side. 

The curriculum of studies in Bowdoin Colleo:e 
was at that time much more restricted than is 
found in our colleges at the present day. But the 
instruction was directed and calculated to teach 
the student to use his own mental powers rather 



144 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

than to crowd the memory with the learning of 
others, — to teach him to think, and think upon 
his feet rather than to store up wdiat other men 
had thought. AVe had, too, such instructors as 
Cleaveland, Upham, Newman, and Packard, and 
the classes were brouo;ht into immediate contact 
with such minds, instead of being turned over to 
young tutors for that which is most essential in 
collesre traininsc. Our most distin squished citizens 
were intensely loyal to the State and its literary 
institutions, and gave such encouragement to our 
colleges as to command for them the confidence of 
the public within and beyond our borders. We 
had in our class the sons of Judge Bridge, Simon 
Greenleaf, Stephen Longfellow, Jeremiah Mason, 
Chief Justice Mellen, and Commodore Preble ; 
and in the preceding class were Franklin Pierce, 
William Pitt Fessenden, and Calvin E. Stowe. 

The year following his graduation, Longfellow 
accepted a professorship of modern languages, in 
which, by his careful and thorough preparation at 
home and abroad, he sustained the high character 
of which his early life gave assurance. 

Some eight years ago I was travelling across 
Nova Scotia from Halifax to Annapolis. At Wind- 
sor a gentleman joined me in the cars, wdio soon 
eno-ao-ed in conversation about the old Acadian 
settlement that was so cruelly dispersed by the 



IN MEMOPdAM. 145 

Eng-lish authorities. He desi^rnated the site of the 
old church into which the Acadians were crowded, 
and from which they were taken to be scattered 
and severed without regard to family ties ; and 
pointed out Grand Pre, where they farmed. He 
soon spoke of Longfellow's "Evangeline." He 
said that the character that Longfellow gave the 
Acadians was literally true ; there was no poetic 
exag-o-eration about it. He was so enthusiastic 
over Lono-fellow that it was difficult to determine 
which he admired most, the Acadians or the poem. 
We concluded that he was a descendant of some 
of the few who escaped the dispersion. 

It was with reluctance that Longfellow consent- 
ed to deliver his " Morituri Salutamus" address be- 
fore the Alumni, on the fiftieth anniversary of his 
graduation. I had applied to him personally, two 
or three years previous, to meet the survivors of 
his class at Commencement ; but he told me there 
had been so many changes since his residence at 
Brunswick that he feared the effect upon him of 
revisiting those scenes. We renewed the effort in 
1875, and obtained the assurance, through the per- 
sistent efforts of Mr. Benson, that all the survivors 
would be present, and Longfellow finally consented 
to come and deliver a poem. I called upon him 
in May. His health was impaired ; but he told 
me he had prepared his poem, and hoped that he 

10 



146 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

should be able to be present and read it at the 
time appointed. 

The announcement that Longfellow was to be 
present and deliver a poem before the Alumni the 
day preceding Commencement, brought together 
at Brunswick a large audience from all parts of 
the State. When the day arrived, as soon as the 
doors of the large church were opened, the house 
was literally jammed, and every space for sitting 
and standing was filled. The survivors of the 
class, eleven in number (two having been accident- 
ally prevented from being present), who had been 
graduated fifty years before, with their venerable 
instructor at their head, were seated upon the 
stage to the left of the speaker, when Longfellow, 
after the impressive introductory services, arose, 
and in his modest and graceful manner read that 
poetic address of which Virgil might have felt 
proud, "Morituri Salutamus." The audience was 
delighted. 

His feelino; allusion to his old instructors and to 
Professor Packard touched the deepest sensibilities 
of his hearers : — 

" They are no longer here ; they are all gone 
Into the land of shadows, — all save one. 
Honor and reverence, and the good repute 
That follows faithful service as its fruit, 
Be unto him, whom living we salute." 



IN MEMORIAM. 147 

When the great poet turned and gracefully 
bowed his salutation to his aged and venerable, 
yet fresh and elegant instructor, the whole audi- 
ence was moved with emotion. 

As soon as the applause that followed the con- 
clusion of the address would permit, it devolved 
upon me to offer a vote of thanks, and I pro- 
posed that the thanks of the Alumni be tendered 
to Mr. Longfellow for his eloquent poetic address, 
and the thanks of the colleo-e and its friends that 
the most illustrious American poet had brought 
the laurels nobly won in the Old World and the 
New, and gracefully placed them upon the brow 
of his Alma Mater. The president of the Alumni, 
on putting the vote, said to the audience that in 
the republic of letters the ladies can vote, and 
those in favor of the resolution would manifest 
it by rising. Instantly the whole audience were 
uj)on their feet, and the poet received such an 
ovation of applause as can never be forgotten by 
those who witnessed it. 

Dr. Cheever delivered an oration on the occa- 
sion, which was characterized by his usual great 
learning and ability. At the Commencement din- 
ner, Mr. Abbott gave a history of all the deceased 
members of the class of 1825, which was written 
in his accustomed felicitous style, and in which he 
rigidly adhered to the maxim, " De mortuis nil 



148 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

nisi boniim." In the evening a large company, 
embracing many distinguished persons, met Long- 
fellow at the hospitable mansion of Professor 
Packard, when he received cordial greetings from 
friends from every part of the State. On the fol- 
lowing morning we assembled aromid the historic 
tree, and repaired thence to a room in the college, 
and after a most impressive prayer by the good 
Dr. Shepley we parted. In letters subsequently 
received from Longfellow he spoke of his visit 
to Brunswick and meeting so many of his old col- 
lege friends. I saw him in 1877, when he alluded 
to this visit with evident satisfaction. 

It was my intention to speak of the character of 
the writings of Longfellow, but that subject is too 
broad for casual remarks, and sudden illness has 
deprived me of the power of making any prepara- 
tion. I must therefore dismiss it with the sing;le 
allusion to his good fortune as an author. He 
must be ranked as the most fortunate of authors, 
with hardly a parallel in history. His genius 
brought him fame and competence early in life, 
and he lived long to enjoy both, unclouded by any 
feeling of envy toward his distinguished contem- 
poraries. He could enjoy the fame of Bryant and 
Whittier and Tennyson, as if it were a tribute to 
the work in which he and they were alike en- 
gaged. But for the sad domestic calamity that 



IN ME MORI AM. 149 

befell him, his lot in hfe would seem to have been 
too happy for niortals here. 

Mr. Hubbard Winslow Bryant, the Librarian 
and Secretary of the Society, then offered the fol- 
lowing: : — 



'O 



I desire to lay a wreath on the tomb of our be- 
loved poet, and to testify with others to his endear- 
ing qualities. I have had the honor of his friend- 
ship for several years, and it was my privilege to 
be useful to him occasionally as a book-hunter. I 
first called his attention to the little pamphlet, the 
Fourth of July oration delivered by his honored 
father. Esquire Longfellow, in 1804, which he had 
never before seen. I procured for him, also, at 
different times, some of the early writings of our 
American authors. 

Mr. Longfellow liked much to examine collec- 
tions of odds and ends in literature. It was a 
pleasure to him to chance upon some little book of 
poems or fiction that had been printed, forgotten, 
and finally brought to the light again. After the 
removal of our library to this city he wrote, con- 
gratulating us upon it, and expressing his best 
wishes for our prosperity. When visiting here in 
August last he passed an hour or two in our library, 
examining the shelves and cabinet with evident 



150 HEXET WADSWOKTH LOXGFELLOW. 

satisfaction. He pressented us with the moccasins 
TTom by the Sioiix warrior. Kain-in-the-Face, who 
killed General Custer. They were sent to him by 
General Miles: in acknowledgment of LcrngfeUow's 
poem. " The Eevenge of Eain-in-the Face : '* 

TThei^ ihe Big Horn aad TeEow^KHtte 

Koar down liteir moaawdn paih. 
Bt ibeir fires ihe SSonx ChSefs 
Mauered tbar woes and griefs 
Aj>d the moaoe of their vruh." 

They are accompanied by the photograph of the 
Indian chief, who has rather an amiable counte- 
nance. His name was evidently given him on ac- 
coxmt of a line of dots or raindrops on his left 
cheek. 

Mr. Longfellow's lasie in the printing and iHus- 
traiion of books was superlative. The early num- 
bers of *• Outre-Mer." printed under his personal 
supejTvision at Brunswick, are very handsome : he 
loved to see **a rivulet of text running throus^h 
a meadow of margin." 

At his request I made search for the date of 
the storm which inspired his ** TTreck of the Hes- 
perus." and found that it occurred on Sunday, 
loth December. lSo9. It was a local storm, 
which spent its force in Massachusetts Bay, The 
fishermen at anchor in Gloucester harbor suffered 



IN ME MORI AM. 151 

most; some fifty lives were lost. The schooner 
Hesperus hailed from Gardiner, Maine. 

When Professor Longfellow was here last sum- 
mer he intimated that he possessed an invaluable 
rehc in a lock of Washington's hair, which he 
would some day present to our Society. I am au- 
thorized by his son, Mr. Ernest W. Longfellow, to 
state that this precious relic will be presented to 
us on some future occasion. 

Longfellow's first printed poem is believed to 
be a ballad on the subject of Lovewell's Fight. 
This we have searched for, but as yet in vain. I 
believe that it contains these lines, but it is pos- 
sible they may be from some other author, as 
there have been a number of ballads on the same 
theme : — 

" I '11 kill you, Chamberlain, said he, 
And scalp you when you 're dead." 

It was probably printed between the years 
1823 and 1825, and perhaps in some weekly paper 
that had a short life. 

A friend has kindly called my attention to an 
ode by Longfellow on the same subject, which 
appeared in the " Gazette of Maine " for May 24, 
1825: — 



152 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



THE COMMEMORATION AT FRYEBURG. 

The following ode was written for the occasion by- 
Mr. H. W. Longfellow, of Bowdoin College : - — 

ODE. 

Air — Bruce' s Address. 

I. 

Many a day and wasted year 

Bright has left its footsteps here, 

Since was broken the warrior's spear. 

And our fathers bled. 
Still the tall trees, arching, shake 
Where the fleet deer by the lake, 
As he dash'd through birch and brake. 
From the hunter fled. 

IT. 

In these ancient woods so bright, 
That are full of life and light. 
Many a dark, mysterious rite 

The stern warriors kept. 
But their altars are bereft, 
Fall'n to earth, and strewn and cleft. 
And a holier faith is left 

Where their fathers slept. 

III. 
From their ancient sepulchres, 
Where amid the giant firs, 



IN MEMORIAM. 153 

Moaning loud, the high wind stirs, 

Have the red men gone. 
Tow'rd the setting sun that makes 
Bright our western hills and lakes, 
Faint and few, the remnant takes 

Its sad journey on. 

IV. 

Where the Indian hamlet stood, 
In the interminable wood, 
Battle broke the solitude. 

And the war-cry rose ; 
Sudden came the straggling shot 
Where the sun looked on the spot 
That the trace of war would blot 

Ere the day's faint close. 

V. 

Low the smoke of battle hung ; 
Heavy down the lake it swung, 
Till the death wail loud was sung 

When the night shades fell ; 
And the green pine, waving dark. 
Held within its shattered bark 
Many a lasting scathe and mark, 

That a tale could tell. 

VI. 

And the story of that day 
Shall not pass from earth away, 



154 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Xor the blighting of decay " . 

Waste our liberty ; 
But within the river's sweep 
Long in peace our vale shall sleep, 
And free hearts the record keep 

Of this jubilee. 

Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr., said that at a re- 
cent meetmg of some of our citizens the question 
of erecting a monument in Portland to the mem- 
ory of the poet had been considered and he 
thought it would be fitting for this Society to 
unite with the people of the city in such measures 
as they might in common agree upon, to carry 
such a purpose into effect, showing thereby that 
not his native city only, but his native State as 
well, desires to have part in a work so honorable 
to both as this would be. 

The most illustrious of all the sons of Maine, 
Lono'fellow did not need the monument. His 
fame was already assured, not in this country 
alone, but in every civilized land on the globe. 
His genius required no such voucher. Genius 
had, indeed, many definitions, — he would not 
stop to analyze or describe them, — and Longfel- 
low would not come within them all ; but he did 
not doubt that in those which were plainest and 
most universally accepted, and such as best dis- 
tinguished the immortal poets of all ages, — God's 



IN MEMOPdAM. 155 

great, like Shakespeare and Burns, — he would be 
easily included ; for, like them, he sang of man and 
of life — of their nearest, deepest, and highest re- 
lations — in words that the world could not choose 
but hear, and would never forget. How many of 
his lines were mottoes of the heart ! How many 
passages of his verse lifted the mind to its highest 
moods ! He was nature's simplest and truest 
bard ; no unintelligible metaphysician nor " howl- 
ing dervish " of song, and yet how full his poems 
were of deep philosophy ! True, it was philoso- 
phy which men did not stare at or worry them- 
selves to find out ; for his stream was clear, not 
because it was shallow, but because, while deep, 
it was not turbid. 

But his genius was most distinguished in the 
highest things, — in the true expression of all that 
was pure and sweet, honest and of good report, of 
what was gentlest yet strongest, most human yet 
the most divine. And no man had such a genius in 
the art, so to speak, of being a gentleman. Only 
Emerson came near him. His native State would 
do herself a kindness, he said, by thus testifying 
to her appreciation of the genius of her great 
son, and by cherishing his memory. And this 
Society should hold up his example and his works 
for the benefit of the people of the State, — the 
men, women, and children of the present age and 



156 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

of the ages which are to come. In no way could 
it better do its best work, or make a more lasting 
claim wpon the gratitude of the future. 

On motion, it was voted to adopt and publish 
in the proceedings of this Society at the meeting 
to celebrate the seventy-fifth birthday of the poet 
Long-fellow the addresses delivered at the memo- 
rial service held in the First Parish Church, Port- 
land, Sunday evening, April 2, 1882, by the pastor, 
the Rev. Thomas Hill, D. D., the Rev. Asa Dalton, 
and the Hon. Joseph W. Symonds. 



\ 



REV. DR. HILL'S ADDRESS. 

The four elements, talent, fortune, industry, and 
inspiration, which must combine to produce the 
highest success in life were all conspicuous in 
the poet whom our city delights to claim and to 
honor. The inheritor, or at least the recipient 
from nature, of fine powers, he had favorable op- 
portunities for cultivating and developing them ; 
but, what is far more important, he opened his 
heart devoutly and reverently to holy influences, 
and gave himself with steadfast, conscientious in- 
dustry to the improvement of his opportunities, 
and to the exercise of his powers. To such a man 
all circumstances become, as it were, favorable ; 
he is, in great measure, independent of fortune ; 
he increases his native talent ; and he insures the 
cooperation of that Inspiring Presence which is al- 
ways ready to enter the heart opened to receive it. 

It is this peculiar moral nobility which has given 
our poet so strong a hold on the affection and re- 
spect of all who know him, either personally or 
by report and tradition. His seniors and equals 
in age bear testimony that from his boyhood he 



158 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

held to his earnest purposes ; he left nothing be- 
hind him to be regretted, — nothing to be covered 
with a veil. The devout solemnity of that early 

Psalm, — 

" Life is real ! Life is earnest ! " — 

was nothing assumed or put on ; it was no surface 
emotion, expending itself in words ; it was a deep, 
inward choice of the way of duty, manifesting it- 
self in a course of steadfast fidelity to the precepts 
of Jesus, from his youth to his old age. Duty is 
not satisfied with professions or with promises; 
it demands an unconditional, total surrender of the 
whole man and the wdiole life to the eternal prin- 
ciples of piety, righteousness, and love. To this 
demand he unceasingly yielded his reverent obe- 
dience. It seemed as though he had secretly said 
to himself, — 

" Tliat I am true my life alone can show ; 
My words are all unequal to the task." 

All that is told us of his private life confirms us in 
this view of the practical reality of his religion ; 
and all his published writings bear witness to it. 
It is not simply their innocence, the absence of 
lines which on his death-bed he might wish to 
erase ; it is the unconscious betrayal, in every part, 
of the writer's own moral earnestness. The deep- 
est fountains of his heart were opened early, by 
great sorrows ; but the streams which issued were 



IN MEMORIAM. 159 

clear and life-giving. The flow often begins from 
a vein of sadness, but it never degenerates into 
melancholy ; and almost invariably ends with 
hope, faith, and charity. Those blessed Christian 
graces were the characteristics of his soul. 

And it was this moral earnestness which (in 
combination with his sweet, courteous dignity and 
his exceptionally high attainments as a scholar 
and achievements as a writer) made him so valua- 
ble as a teacher; first in his Alma Mater, and 
afterwards in the chair at Cambridge, where his 
services and fame outshone the glory of his re- 
markable predecessor and of his highly gifted suc- 
cessor. The young men who met him were as 
much impressed and inspired by the moral influ- 
ences which flowed unconsciously from his pres- 
ence as by the direct teaching in his class-room. 
No wonder that the Alumni of both institutions 
have desired to take part in these solemn services 
of thanksgiving for his life and labors, and for 
the inspiration which has left us such valuable 
fruits, for our inheritance and that of our chil- 
dren. For, through the grace that was given him, 
he has left a precious legacy to many succeeding 
generations. 



JUDGE SYMONDS' ADDRESS. 

It has fallen to me somewhat suddenly to take 
a brief part in this memorial service, speaking 
for the resident Alumni of Bowdoin. 

It would perhaps be strange if the Alumni of 
the colleo;e in which the intellectual life of Lons;- 
fellow began, " and to which his name imparts 
charm and illustration," were to remain in willing 
silence among those who are met in memory of 
the most illustrious of her sons, standing as it 
were just within the sudden darkness which has 
followed the sunset of his life. And yet, what is 
there for them to do ; — what is there for the 
college to do now, with a heart brimming with 
proud and grateful emotions, better than to sit 
down in her sorrow for the dead, and to oifer the 
golden tribute of silence, of gratitude and thanks, 
for the life that has closed, for the peerless and 
priceless legacy his genius and fame have left to 
her. 

To the graduates of Bowdoin (as of other col- 
leges), who sometimes in later life go back in a sort 
of enchantment of memory and the imagination 



IN MEMORIAM. IGl 

to the pleasant years passed there, — to some of 
them, at least, there is always a halo about the col- 
lege. There are other associations, too, connected 
with it, of more or less interest to all. But that 
Longfellow and Hawthorne, — Hawthorne, whose 
genius Longfellow was among the first to recog- 
nize, sending a ray of joy and sunlight into the 
darkness of his long seclusion by that kindly and 
appreciative notice of the " Twice-Told Tales," in 
the "North American Eeview " in 1837, — that 
the footsteps of these two men, in youth and early 
manhood, were accustomed to loiter there, these 
are associations which will linger imperishably, 
growing richer and stronger as something of the 
interest and charm of antiquity shall gather about 
the college. It is not for me to speak in fitting 
terms of Longfellow's poetry, of its manifold and 
exceeding beauty, in spirit, in substance and form, 
or of the marvels of his achievement. His poems 
seem to me to be the best life, the highest and 
purest aspiration, the graceful and strong expres- 
sion of a serene and noble mind. We read them, 
and all common things appear in a finer light. 
There is a new beauty in human life, a new glory 
on the earth and in the heavens. The round of 
daily duties is no longer sordid or dull. The op- 
portunity, the possibility for ourselves, whatever 
it may be, we learn to set a new value upon it, 
11 



162 HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW. 

to estimate it at its best, perhaps to prize it above 
gold. 

One of the fragments which remain of the 
Twelve Tables of the Roman law provides that 
those qualities by which the heroes were deified, 
virtue, piety, fidelity, shall be ranked among the 
divinities. Temples shall be erected to them. But 
let no worship ever be paid to any vice. The 
pristine Roman vigor and purity are in that law. 
But the altars to these same divinities are sacred 
still in Longfellow's verse, and a holier fire burns 
upon them forever. 

What an assured immortality of fame is his! 
His works are already the inheritance of the whole 
earth. Transcending the boundaries of nations, 
they have become the common property of man- 
kind ; common as the light of day is common, or 
the glory of the sunset, or the stars at night. His 
is the life of books, — the long life of the best 
books; and that is immortality. 

" How instantly the air will close on this arrowy 
path ! " once Rufus Clioate exclaimed, alluding to 
his own professional career, brilliant as it was. 
And in his beautiful journal of travel he writes, 
" Some memorial I would leave yet, rescued from 
the grave of a mere professional man, — some 
wise, or beautiful, or interesting page. After all, a 
book is the only immortality." 



7.Y MEMORIAM. 1G3 

" It is only letters," said Lord Bacon, " which, 
as ships, pass through the vast sea of time." 

Something of the subtle quality of eloquence is 
born of the moment and expires with it. Part of 
the great occasion, it cannot be reproduced. Of 
those arts imperial, by which in great crises the 
emotions of the hour and the judgments of men 
are swayed by public speaking, only the great 
myth can be transmitted to posterity. 

I am reminded of the language of an author, by 
whom this contrast has been strikingly painted. 
He says, " The written outlives and outdazzles 
the spoken word. The life of rhetoric perishes 
with the rhetorician. . . . The bows of eloquence 
are buried with the archers. Where is the splen- 
did declamation of Bolingbroke ? It has vanished, 
like his own image from the" grass-plots of Twick- 
enham. 

" Literature is the immortality of speech. It em- 
balms for all ages the departed kings of learning, 
and watches over their repose in the eternal joj^ra- 
mids of fame. The sumptuous cities which have 
lighted the world since the beginning of time are 
now beheld only in the pictures of the historian 
or the poet. Homer rebuilds Troy, and Thuc^^d- 
ides renews the war of Peloponnesus. The dart 
that pierced the Persian breastplate moulders in 
the dust of Marathon; but the arrow of Pindar 
quivers, at this hour, with the life of his bow." 



164 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Two thousand years and more ago, twenty-four 
centuries ago, and the arrow of Pindar still quiv- 
ers with the life of his bow. 

It will be well for the world, for the happiness 
and nobility of mankind, if the costly grace and 
spiritual beauty of Longfellow's poetry shall con- 
tinue to be familiar as household words, two thou- 
sand years to come ; yes, when lights of empire 
have died out, " like embers on a cottager's 
hearth." 



REV. MR. DALTON'S ADDRESS. 

The ancients regarded the city of a man's birth 
as his mother, whom he was bound to love, serve, 
and obey by his life and his works. As such, the 
city claimed the right to award him suitable hon- 
ors while he lived, and to pronounce his final eu- 
logy immediately after death. This custom was 
honored by careful observance, and was believed 
to be due equally to the departed and to his 
surviving friends and fellow citizens. To the de- 
parted, it was a tribute of love and gratitude, mer- 
ited by the services he had rendered his native 
city in its corporate capacity, as well as to the in- 
dividual citizens. To his fellow citizens, it was also 
an indirect but efficient call to follow in his steps, 
at least in intent and spirit, so far as possible, by 
emulating his example of well-doing, and striving 
to excel in their several conditions and callino-s. 

And such is the occasion of our meetinor to- 
night, and of this memorial service. Portland 
claims the great poet whom we have lost as the 
brightest and best of all her sons. The city was 
proud of him and loved him while he lived, and 



166 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

now that he is dead she is, after his immediate 
family, the chief mourner at his grave, and most 
deeply feels of how great a son she is bereaved. 
His name and fame are indissolubly connected 
with this city by the sea. And Portland's mother- 
heart will not rest satisfied until she erect in " The 
Oaks " an enduring monument to his memory, — 
a statue of the poet, — by which his form and 
features may be familiar to future generations. 

Longfellow's life divides itself into three parts : 
his youth and early manhood till he was thirty 
years of age, a period of preparation and constant 
improvement; his ripe manhood, from thirty to 
sixty, a period of active labor, when his best work 
was done ; and from sixty to seventy-five, a period 
of calm repose and advancing old age, when he 
was the object of his countrymen's warm admira- 
tion and affection. He was about forty, in the 
prime of manhood, when the speaker knew him in 
college, where he was at the head of the depart- 
ment of Modern Languages and Literature, direct- 
ing the teachers of French, German, Italian, and 
Spanish, and occasionally himself teaching all these 
classes, to the great gratification of the students. 

James Russell Lowell, the successor of Long- 
fellow at Harvard, once said to Dr. Hill, that, for 
his part, he still held to the Ptolemaic system, in- 
asmuch as it makes the earth the centre of the 



IX MEMORIAM. 167 

universe, and man the chief of God's works, — a 
sentiment which science goes far to confirm, as 
Lowell meant it. Our little planet seems to offer 
the most favorable conditions for the highest 

o 

forms of life and the highest type of beings. 
And as man is the chief end of creation, so the 
poet is the highest type of man, rarer in his ap- 
pearance among men, and essaying a higher flight 
than his fellows. 

Literature in general must be preferred even to 
science, for the same reason, namely, because its 
province is human life with its possibilities. Lit- 
erature is the sum and substance of human life 
in all its aspects, expressed and perpetuated in 
"thoughts that breathe and words that burn." 
It includes all that is thrilling in eloquence, 
profound in philosophy, permanent in morality, 
and instructive in history, no less than the charms 
of poetry, the strange in romance, the mirthful 
in comedy, and the terrible in tragedy. Great and 
noble thoughts, clearly enunciated and adorned 
by graceful and varied imagery, are the highest 
style of literature, and constitute true and per- 
manent poetry. Philosophers, divines, historians 
and orators have made mankind their debtors by 
masterpieces of eloquence, but not in the same 
degree as the great poets, ancient and modern. 
The form at least of philosophy, theology, history. 



/ 



168 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

and oratory, changes from age to age. But poetry 
is a perennial spring whose waters never fail to 
quench the thirst of the soul. Homer, So^Aocles, 
Virgil, Horace, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Words- 
worth, are as fresh and refreshing to-day as in 
the aa;es which first listened to the music of their 
verse. To hold communion with these great sing- 
ers through their masterpieces is the privilege of 
all-, and is possible to all. By doing so the taste 
is refined, the heart purified, the imagination ex- 
alted, and the whole man lifted to a higher plane 
of feeling, thinking, and being. 

And now what we claim for our Longfellow is, 
that he belongs to this glorious band of immortal 
bards, whose procession, as seen by Dante, he has 
gone to join, and by whom, we doubt not, he has 
been recognized, and received into their select so- 
ciety as one of themselves, " a brother beloved." 

Intanto voce fu per me udita, 
" Onorate I'altissimo poeta." 

If you ask us for the grounds of this belief, our 
reply is that made to those who in St. Paul's ask 
for the monument of Sir Christopher Wren : 
Circumspice, " Look around you ; " and on every 
side, all over the world, wherever the English 
tongue is spoken, you will find ample proof that 
Portland gave a true poet to the world in Henry 
Wadsworth Longfellow. 



IN MEMOPdAM. 169 

More read in England than their own Laureate, 
in this country he is facile j^rinceps. Not that we 
would disparage Bryant, whom also we have lost, 
or Whittier, who still lives to sing the ballads of 
New England as they should be sung, in a manner 
all his own, and with a tenderness and pathos 
which find a response in every New England heart. 
Whittier is racy of the soil, to the manor born ; 
no " travelled man," not " having seen many lands 
or men of diverse manners," but a poet of home- 
like aptitude, tastes, and sympathies. Longfellow 
loved New England no less, but his culture car- 
ried his thought into all lands and literatures, 
from which he derived treasures to adorn his own 
verse and enrich and ennoble the minds of his 
readers. 

The influence of the great German poets in par- 
ticular is easily discernible in his youthful rhymes, 
more especially that of Uhland, whom he emulated 
and finally surpassed. 

But he lived to have a manner all his own, for 
which he was indebted to no one, — a manner and 
a style which, in inferior hands, quickly degener- 
ated into mannerism, giving us " the contortions 
of the prophet without his inspiration." 

His genius, like that of his friend and contempo- 
rary, Tennyson, is lyrical rather than dramatic or 
epic, and this lyrical genius has entered into the 



170 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

emotions, the aspirations, the thoughts, the life, of 
EngUsh-speaking people all over the world. 

If we compare Longfellow with the most illus- 
trious of his contemporaries and personal friends, 
he will lose nothing by the comparison. It was 
his good fortune to number among his friends 
such men as Everett, Sumner, Felton, Walker, 
Holmes, Bryant, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, and 
Winthrop. He equalled Everett in elegance, and 
surpassed him in geniality of manners and gen- 
erosity of soul, that delicate and unfailing sympa- 
thy which greatly endeared him to " all sorts and 
conditions of men." His tact was finer than Sum- 
ner's, and his face, the index of his heart, as ra- 
diant as Felton's. He was as great a favorite as 
Dr. Walker with Harvard students ; and he shared 
with Bryant and Whittier the admiration of his 
countrymen, while the number of his English and 
foreign admirers was far greater. 

If asked to name the trait at once the most 
characteristic of the poet and most worthy of our 
commendation and emulation, we should instance 
his industry, which was literally untiring. Only 
those who knew him best, his own immediate 
family and family connections, can fully appreciate 
this point. But I doubt not that they will con- 
firm the statement that the poet's time and 
streno'th were taxed to their utmost tension. He 



IN MEMO Rl AM. 171 

never knew what it was to lose a clay, or waste an 
hour in idleness. Even " the children's hour " was 
no exception, as he must have felt while living, 
and his children more amply understand now that 
he is no longer with them as of old. Add to this 
trait, his manly presence, fine countenance, speak- 
ing eye, genial smile, friendly, sympathetic voice, 
and courteous address, and you have the outward 
semblance of " the perfect man," whose mind was 
a kino-dom. 

And if, as Pericles says, that " of good and great 
men the whole earth is the sepulchre," because 
their memory is a precious inheritance, which 
should be guarded and preserved by all men, and 
also because their thouiirhts and lives become at 
death the common property of the world, then of 
Longfellow, whose happiness it was in life to be 
personally loved, and in death universally la- 
mented, we may truly say, — 

" He in our wonder and astonishment, 
Has built himself a lifelong monument, 
And there sepulchred in such pomp doth lie 
That kinirs for such a tomb miafht wish to die." 



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